


This Will All Make Sense in the Morning

by shadow13



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms
Genre: Abduction, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, Fucked Up, Manipulation, Modeling, Oral Sex, Sex Club, Voyeurism, challenge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-08
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-03-29 15:31:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 29,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3901468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shadow13/pseuds/shadow13
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa didn’t pull away, but her blue eyes flashed hot in the darkness. “Do you think I came here to make my mother proud of me?” Petyr said nothing. “I’m not as dumb as all that, I know what this is. Do you know what it’s like, living with that woman?” He took it here that she meant Cersei, and not Catelyn. “If I eat with her, she tells me I’m getting too plump; if I yawn, she tells me I am looking washed out; if I am not perfect every second of every day, she lets me know - she always lets me know. I am never good enough for them, for her, for Joffrey. I’m stupid and naive and the dirt beneath their feet. I can’t leave, I can’t go home - what else am I to do? What would you do? Because I have to do something.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. First Encounter

**Author's Note:**

> This was a tumblr challenge that got wildly out of hand and became this truly fucked-up monstrosity. I'll be posting parts weekly for the next five weeks. Title comes from the Halou song "It Will All Make Sense in the Morning" and I consider that track to be the definitive soundtrack of this fic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZCIIGyQHXak

“It has a dress code,” Ellaria had smiled at her over the sangria, thick with the pulp of blood oranges.

Sansa watched, enraptured, lips parted; it was rare to get away from Cersei’s critical eye, the woman who claimed to be more than her manager, nearly her mother. She almost had been, once. The way she had once worshiped Cersei’s talent and beauty, wanted to be like her, she now directed towards the exotic Ellaria, who made all the tabloids with her handsome lover, wore all the right clothes, knew exactly what to say…A moment alone, to drink the woman in, was more edifying than all of the exercises Cersei had her doing, brutal, boring.

“I can dress the part,” Sansa assured. “I don’t care about that. I know how to fit in.”

“Don’t you, little pup?” Ellaria smiled over her tapas, cool and elegant. “I would have said it would scare you off, but maybe not.”

“How do I get in? Please, I have to know.”

Ms. Sand sighed, dabbing her napkin across her mouth so as not to smear her lip gloss. “All you need is an I.D. for the front, but who wants to go there? Nothing but sweating students and drunken fools. No, if you want a real experience, use the side door. No lines, they don’t let people hang around there.”

“The side door?”

“That’s right.” The exotic woman nodded, pulling out a tube of gloss to touch up her wine-red mouth. “Say the Red Viper recommended you. They’ll let you in, we’re  _excellent_ customers of theirs.”

Sansa did not know if her pulse was racing with excitement or with fear.

* * *

She still didn’t know the next night, when she stood by the side door. Ellaria had been telling the truth, the line for the front entrance nearly wrapped the block. Some hopefuls had been waiting there since the sun had set. Sansa’s heart had hammered in her chest as soon as she approached the door, the burly man that stood as its watch. She did not say hello, because she knew it would give away her nerves and inexperience.

Instead, wordless, she pulled out her driver’s license and lifted her chin in the most imperious way she could manage. “The Red Viper said I should stop by.” The man glanced at her face after scouring the dates on her I.D. card. Did his eyebrow raise? Hard to tell. She ignored the feeling of sweat beading on her brow. “I got the impression he enjoyed himself.”

He had to see right through that. Even so, the man stepped to the side - and opened the door for her. “We always try to serve Mr. Martell and his  _friends_ well.” Sansa’s mouth went dry as she stepped across the threshold, ankles feeling wobbly in her strappy heels. “Have a good evening, miss.” The door shut behind her. Sansa jumped and tried to condition her eyes to the dark.

This room was not like the main floor of the club, that much she had been able to assess from photos on the website. Oh no, this was grander by tenfold, couches done in black leather or red velvet, the bar top made of marble. The liquors that lined the mirrored shelf were all top grade, nothing cheap or knockoff on  _this_ side of the club. The patrons here were older men and women, tycoons of industry, powerful politicians, media moguls.

And the working girls? Sansa gulped a little. These weren’t run of the mill topless dancers. Each was beautiful enough to grace the cover of a magazine, hair long and perfect, lips plump, breasts full, hips round, waists  _impossibly_ tiny. Some wore purple silk corsets with matching garters over black stockings; some were in the outfits of French maids; at least one was done up like a harem girl, but  _all_ were beyond the scope of beauty Sansa had ever seen on any catwalk. She pulled down at the short hem of her tiny, black dress and felt instantly out of place. 

Her solution was to stride to the bar like she knew what she was doing, where a bald headed man in a buttoned shirt and tie wiped down one corner with a rag. “Good evening, miss.” His manners, at least, were impeccable. “And what can I get for you this evening?”

Sansa laid the credit card out on the marble; Tyrion’s card (”In case you run into an emergency,” he’d said. That man didn’t know what an emergency this was). “Brandy Alexander, please.” It sounded sophisticated, and better yet, sweet. Lemondrops were Sansa’s drink of choice, but that didn’t seem elegant enough for such a place, and she dreaded being caught out as a pretender here as she never did under the Lannister’s watchful eyes.

“Very good, miss,” the barkeep nodded, starting up her tab and slipping the card back toward her over the counter top.

Fingers stopped its slide, and not her own. Masculine, with well kept cuticles and a gold and ruby ring on the right hand. “Don’t tell me we haven’t been checking for I.D.”

Once more, Sansa had no idea if she was elated or terrified. For a moment, she did not look up into the man’s face, only stared at his chest, at the dark grey silk vest that covered up her view of his emerald green tie - the mockingbird tie tack in silver that held it all together. She swallowed slightly. “I’m twenty one, Mr. Baelish.” Sansa raised her head and looked her accuser in the eye. The darkness of the lounge brought out the grey in his eyes, but his mouth twitched toward a smile beneath his trim mustache. “You know that.”

Sansa moved to take the card back, her own fingers just a few millimeters removed from the man’s, the two still looking at one another - and after a moment, Littlefinger released the plastic and Sansa had to work to keep from giving a sigh of relief. “So you are.” The smile he gave her barely existed, a smirk across his lips, one that tugged his small triangle of a beard. “Difficult to tell with that youthful face of yours.”

Another man sat next to her at the bar on Sansa’s right, and even though her back was to him as she faced Littlefinger, he felt compelled to strike up conversation. “Hey there, pretty thing.” That smile was a  _grin,_ a leer, one that threatened to swallow her whole. Sansa cast an uncomfortable glance over her shoulder, bending in on herself defensively. “I haven’t seen you around here before. First timer?”

“She’s my guest.” He had used  _that voice_ ; that hard, sharp, Littlefinger voice that brooked no argument Sansa had only rarely heard before, as he usually played the jovial, smiling dilettante. 

The man looking her over scowled. “I thought you didn’t mix business with pleasure, Littlefinger?”

The man’s hand wrapped around her bare, upper left arm, and Sansa was unsure if she was grateful or resentful. “I do when they’re this pretty. Have another drink, my treat.”

This mollified the stranger, but not Sansa, as Petyr was pulling her out of the chair. The bartender reappeared with her cocktail glass, fresh nutmeg ground at the top and already hitting her senses. “Your drink, miss.”

“Dump that,” Petyr instructed, and the bartender didn’t even blink, turning away to do precisely as he was told.

“Hey!”

“I don’t want to hear someone’s mixing my good brandy like a schoolgirl mixes vodka and Red Bull.” He was pulling her away from the bar, off the floor to the curtained hallway where door after door waited to be opened; some already had “occupied” signs turned on them, and Sansa could just pick up on the noises beyond. “Someone’s got to teach you how to drink, and those wino Lannisters certainly aren’t going to do it.”

“Where are you taking me?”

“My office.”

“ _Oh_ no.” Sansa was in flight mode; she couldn’t escape him, his grip was deceptively strong, but she wasn’t going to let him call home to Cersei like the principal calling a mother on a naughty student. They were passing another door, this one with the sign turned to “available.” Sansa took a chance: she dove for it, the momentum dragging her captor right along with her. Before Petyr could say word one, she’d flipped the sign and shut the door. 

This was, possibly, a mistake. This room was even darker than the bar floor, colored bulbs tilting the low light a deep magenta. It washed over the man, made his hair glow, made his eyes straight silver. She wondered, absently, what she looked like as well. The room’s dominating feature was the chaise, double-wide for two bodies to sit side-by-side, though a buffet also stood against one of the walls. MP3 player, a pitcher of water and crystal glasses…condoms, lubricant…Sansa knew where she was. She didn’t flinch.

Petyr looked her over, sighed. “You could have at least gone for the room with the mirrored ceiling.”

Sansa’s lip twitched up, half a sneer. “Sounds like a bitch to clean.”

“Well, don’t you have a saucy mouth. Do you know what this place is?”

“Yes.”

She didn’t hesitate, which seemed to surprise him slightly. He paused, considering her, before turning to pour himself a glass of water. “It’s a sex club, Sansa.”

It made her color slightly to hear him  _say_ it. She hoped the light washed that out of her cheeks. “I-I know.”

“Which  _means_ the  _gentleman_ at the bar assumed you were there to be, shall we say,  _wooed_.” Her blush deepened. Somehow, that had escaped her thought process. “Is that why you came here? Because, frankly, I’ll be disappointed.” She shook her head. “Why, then?”

Sansa opened her mouth to tell him - but decided against it. She couldn’t trust Petyr Baelish, she knew that, she couldn’t trust  _anyone_. And if that felt lonely, if at times it made her do reckless things like… _this_ , well, she was a tough Stark daughter. She could handle it. “It’s too complicated to explain.”

He examined her, Mr. Baelish did, with those eyes of washed out silver from the sideboard, the water glass held in his lithe fingers. “Hmm,” was his first, delayed response, before he started toward the door again. “Well, I will get you home.”

“No, please!” It was Sansa’s turn to grab onto him, both hands wrapping around his right wrist, the one that didn’t hold the water glass. It stopped him mere feet from the door and he turned his head back to her. “Please, don’t call Cersei!”

“Does she know you’re here?”

Sansa shook her head again. “Margaery agreed to say I was spending the night with her.”

“ _Really -_ this is a level of schoolgirl idiocy I expect from Myrcella, not from you. I thought Margaery had better sense than that.”

“Her grandmother always covers for her, and Cersei wouldn’t argue with  _her_.”

Petyr freed himself from her grip, his long, elegant fingers reaching out to hold her by the chin. “Your mother would have a  _fit_ if she knew you were here.”

Sansa didn’t pull away, but her blue eyes flashed hot in the darkness. “Do you think I came here to make my mother  _proud_ of me?” Petyr said nothing. “I’m not as dumb as all that, I  _know_ what this is. Do you know what it’s like, living with  _that woman_?” He took it here that she meant Cersei, and not Catelyn. “If I eat with her, she tells me I’m getting too plump; if I yawn, she tells me I am looking washed out; if I am not perfect every second of every day, she lets me know - she  _always_ lets me know. I am never good enough for them, for her, for Joffrey. I’m stupid and naive and the  _dirt_ beneath their feet. I can’t leave, I can’t go home - what else am I to do? What would  _you_ do? Because I have to  _do_ something.”

Petyr stared at her a long while. This close, Sansa could see the green in his eyes again, and she stiffened and shivered slightly as he raised his palm to run his thumb across her cheekbone. “The difficulty of signing contracts with managers, hm?” He sighed, and his breath touched her lips; it was pleasantly minty, as if he’d just brushed his teeth, and Sansa’s eyes half-closed for just a moment. “Ned never should have let you do it.”

“It was my fault…” Sansa whispered. She couldn’t blame her father for this. “I said it was what I wanted, I  _thought_ it was what I wanted. And it’s too tight of a contract to get out of, it’s like I sold my soul to the devil.”

“Yes, she gets that from her father…” After a moment, Petyr released her, back straightening. “Hm. So, this is your moment of youthful rebellion, is it? They all think Sansa Stark is such a little lady, and you were going to prove them wrong?”

Her head bent forward even as his raised. “Something like that…”

There was a silence again, but then his hand traveled from her face down to the smooth column of her throat. “I suppose we should just be glad this was all you did; not covering up your perfect skin with a tattoo, or shaving your head…”

His thumb was positioned at her trachea, but Sansa did not want to seem nervous. She managed a very weak smile. “That might not be so bad. I could give it to children with cancer.”

Petyr snorted. “If you’re giving your hair to anyone, give it to me.”

This seemed a rather morbid thought to Sansa; what would he do with her hair? His fingers skirted the ends of it even now, it might be her chance. She leaned forward on the tips of her toes. “You’re not going to tell Cersei, are you, Petyr?” His eyes snapped back to her face, hard and grey once more. She bit her lower lip and moved closer, their mouths almost sharing breath. “ _Please_?”

His hand moved from her throat to her shoulder and pressed her back down again. Sansa had miscalculated. “What sort of idiot do you take me for?”

She gaped slightly. “No, I-”

“Do you think I’m bought off with kisses? Even if they are yours, sweetling?”

The girl huffed, lips pursed. “That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”

“Don’t toy with me.” 

Her hands wrapped around his shoulders, desperate to hold the man still and get him to shut up and  _listen_ for a second. “I’m not good enough to be a tease, okay?”

It worked for a moment, he judged her with those cold, near-lifeless eyes of his, eyes like a shark. A shiver ran down the girl’s spine, but it wasn’t entirely fearful. “Yes, you are.” Her brow furrowed. “Most girls are - you especially.” He stepped forward, toward her and away from the door. It forced Sansa to step back, toward the chaise. “You might just not know it yet.”

And that was that, the ever-so-cautious Littlefinger and his steely resolve snapped; his mouth slashed down across her own. It wasn’t a rough kiss, as far as kisses went, but it was hungry, full of anger and frustration and need - on both sides. Her teeth grazed his lower lip and she soothed the mark with her tongue, so that his own joined her in a push and pull of damp muscle. His long fingers tangled in her hair, and her own hands met at the base of his skull, nails a delicious drag across his scalp. He moaned into her mouth and pulled his hands to her hips to yank her closer to him, his knee pushing between the bare skin of her thighs. Sansa gasped as he settled her against his leg, un-protesting as he dragged her up and down, the friction and the heat from him sending blood rushing through her system.

Petyr watched her open-mouthed reaction with hazy, lust-glazed green eyes, felt the girl’s fingers flexing at his neck in sudden need that he was driving. “You don’t want me, Sansa Stark.” His voice was husky against her swollen lips, her blue eyes dull and half-closed with want. “You just want to rebel.” At the moment, she wasn’t sure that that was true; it was true Petyr was no tall, broad-shouldered, muscled man like she’d always fantasized over before - but after being surrounded by such self-absorbed monsters for all her time with the Lannisters, Sansa had lost a lot of the taste for the things she had enjoyed before. Or was that merely growing up? She didn’t know. What she did know was that take away Petyr from this situation, replace his hot, firm leg with someone else’s, and she would have felt like curling in on herself and pulled away, would have felt cheap and uninterested. It was the experienced way his lithe fingers pulled her hips back and forth against him, rubbing that one perfect spot at her pelvis against the bone of his hip, so that her breath left her and her toes curled, that was making her flushed and achy now. If she hadn’t found him attractive before,  _God_ was he attractive now, like this. Strange how that could change with  _demonstration_.

She leaned forward to catch his mouth again, to prove him wrong, and he met her in the gesture, tongue a soft, firm swipe against her mouth. “But we’re all pretenders in here.” He spoke again and she strained to catch every tone of voice. “I suppose I don’t mind the game for a little while…”

“ _Petyr_ -!” She was going to be leaving damp marks on his trousers at this rate. He took the hint, turned and pulled her down onto the chaise with him. Sansa’s fingers hurried with the buttons of his vest, his shirt, the zipper of his pants. “You talk too much, you know,” she panted, her hand sliding beneath his waistline to feel him thick and hot beneath the clothes, reveling in the way he stiffened and hissed at the touch; not so stoic as he put on. “Are you feeling sorry for yourself, is that it?” Her fingers flexed along his length and she felt him twitch and grow all the more turgid.

His breathing was heavy beneath her, an eyebrow still raised. “Who talks too much?”

She leaned forward so their lips brushed, but did nothing else, her thumb swiping over his head so that he shuddered and bucked against her; it was a deliciously powerful feeling, a sensation that surged through her and brought a grin to her red lips. “You don’t think I notice the way you look at me? You don’t know what I’d say, maybe yes, maybe no. You never ask, so you can’t really know. And I’m here, aren’t I? So do more than look.” In response, his fingers found the hem of her dress, pulled it up over her thighs and hips so that her entire lower half was exposed to him. His breathing grew heavier. “You’re a powerful man -  _make_ me want you.”

Petyr’s fingers were quick to yank away her underwear, pulling them halfway down her thigh before she was able to wiggle and help free herself of them. The air was cold between her legs, but she was too flushed and hot to notice it. The pads of his fingers teased over her in a slight dance and Sansa whimpered, biting her lip, needing so much  _more_. This was madness, but it was the most natural madness in the world, the kind of thing humanity had been built upon for thousands and thousands of years.

The man fumbled for the sideboard, dragging one silver-wrapped prophylactic off the shelf. Sansa shivered at the crinkling sound, making quick work of his tie so that she could run her tongue over the sharpness of his clavicle. A scar began there, she could see it working its way down through the greying dusting of hair the dotted his chest, and, perversely, she liked the look of it - liked that they were both fucked up and scarred. She should have done this sooner. They were a good match for one another.

The girl’s fingers trembled as she helped smooth the latex down the length of him, her forehead pressed against his temple. Was she really doing this? Fucking a man she hardly knew in a  _sex club_? Honestly, it seemed like the best, most fulfilling idea she’d had in quite some time. Petyr waited as he positioned her hips above him, eyes catching hers, a silent question of  _permission_. Sansa nodded, teeth still pulling at her lip as he lowered her oh. So. Slowly down onto him.

His breath left him in a low moan as Sansa’s fingers clutched the loose material of his shirt. He was thicker than she’d been expecting, a stretching pull that ached, but so sweetly…He let her adjust around him for a moment, his fingers flexing at her hip, tight enough to leave bruises in the shape of his hands. She wanted to be able to remember this when it was done and she was back to being the ridiculed plaything of a bunch of over-inflated cats. She wanted to remember defying the workings of the universe to protest that she was free and alive in this  _one moment_. She hadn’t come to the club seeking this, at least, she didn’t think she had. But maybe that was why she had asked about  _his_ establishment, rather than any other cheap bar in the city. Perhaps, somewhere in the depths of her, she had known this was what she needed? 

Petyr began to help her move now, a subtle rocking of the hips. Sansa’s breathy gasps went higher in pitch, leaving her in needy moans she had not expected. The rocking pressed the length of him against a spongy spot within her, made Sansa give small, mewling cries that her partner seemed to  _revel_ in, eyes half closed, breathing heavy. They picked up both the pace and the elegance of the motions, the girl steadying herself against his shoulders, knees aching on either side of his legs. Back and up, forward and down she moved, eyes closing each time she slid along his shaft. Her fingers flexed, nails digging into his skin, and her head fell forward to muffle her voice at his throat, teeth grazing his flesh in desperation.

Petyr knew, he understood. His hips rose to meet her own as she slid down, nose buried at her temple, sweat gathering at the nape of his neck. Everything was becoming heightened; the mixing scents of their congress, their sweat, his cologne and her perfume. Sansa didn’t expect to enjoy it as much as she did, the musky scents, the obscene smack and squelch of damp skin on skin, and yet,  _oh_ , it was so naturally beautiful. 

He was growing bolder, too, voice low and rough. “ _Good girl_ …” The praise made Sansa’s arms tighten around his shoulders, a small cry and a desperate pleasure. She was a sensitive girl, one who had always naturally striven to please, which made Cersei’s disdain for her all the more painful - and Petyr could heal it as no one else could in that moment, his tongue lapping at her throat, his voice approving. “ _Such a good girl_ …”

“Y-yes, Petyr-!”

“Do you want to come for me, little girl, is that it?”

God, this was dirtier than she’d anticipated, she wasn’t used to  _talking_ during sex. But she liked it, liked hearing him speak as she bit her lip and ground her hips harder against him. “Y-yes,  _please_ …”

“You can, if you want to…” The permission of it made her desire that much more aching and intense, so that she cried out when his thumb found where they joined together and rubbed in a hard, firm circle. Sansa could feel the heat and pressure building, the mindlessness of orgasm that was both terrifying and tempting. “Go on, Sansa. Let go - for me.”

For him, she could, as she could not for herself; her head tilted back as she lost all sense of reality in a small, crying moment of heat and spasms. Her body shook, her legs especially, exhausted and trembling for the effort. Petyr held her tight against him as her muscles clenched and released, his mouth pressed against the point of her pulse as he met his own end. Sansa collapsed around him, a mess that draped across his body and had no desire to move. And he did not move her, except to pull out and dispose of the evidence of their crime, the well-used prophylactic. Even so, he resettled her on his lap, draping his suit jacket over her naked arms as she pillowed her head on his shoulder, taking in the scent of his skin at the throat.

Sansa’s voice was a tired whisper, her mind humming with over-stimulation. “Don’t tell, please…I want to have a secret…”

His fingers flexed over her spine, breathing and heart rate slowing. “Our secret.”

She pressed her lips against the hollow of his throat. “Yeah…”

“That can be alright.”

Sleepily, she wrapped her arms around his neck and closed her tired, blue eyes.

* * *

She still didn’t seem to understand that crowds made him nervous.

“I’ve got an in at that Mockingbird club on Landing,” Ygritte said, her voice all excitement. “It’s costume night, you can come straight off duty in your uniform.”

“Are you crazy?” Yes, she was. “If a CO saw me, I’d be boiled alive.”

He could hear her rolling her eyes over the phone. “If you’re meeting a commanding officer at a sex club, you have  _way_ bigger problems, Jon.”

“It’s a  _sex club_?”

“What did you  _think_ it was?”

“ _Not that_.”

“Come on.” That pout that was in her voice, he could see the way she’d stick out her lower lip, all to entice him. “The idea of doing it in public makes me hot.” She must have heard his discomfort, for she sighed. “They have private rooms, you know. No one has to be in there with us.”

He acquiesced, the way she must have known he would, but he regretted it now, pressed against all these bodies. And “costume,” was a generous term, most of the people there were in fetish outfits that barely covered their torsos, and often not even that. Ygritte, at least, was having fun, glow sticks in her hand, gyrating to the pounding music, hips locked with his. She had on some kind of ridiculous “Sexy viking wench” outfit, her red hair in braids. His “costume” must have been a hit, for girls kept approaching him, breasts practically popping, batting eyes. Ygritte scared them off with heated glares and choice words the way he’d have expected his viking wench to do, and it was almost as if he was getting into the spirit of the thing; Jon grabbed her by one wild braid as she leaned forward against him, and she grinned wickedly and swatted at him.

Ygritte dragged her crooked teeth over the shell of his ear and the young man shivered. “Are you ready for the real fun to begin, Corporal Snow?” His hand squeezed at her waist in wordless response. “Come on…”

Jon was getting into the spirit of the thing, palms sweating with nerves and excitement. Down a much quieter corridor, door after door presented itself: “occupied,” “occupied,” “available,” “occupied.” Ygritte picked one, seemingly at random, flipped the sign, and yanked him inside. His back was against the door, her mouth on his, and yes, this was beginning to sound like a good idea - when she pulled away, lips giving a dull pop as they disengaged with his own.

The wild girl was grinning at him in the low light. “Okay, ready for the second part of the plan?”

Jon’s mind felt like it was in a haze, he blinked grey eyes at her. “What?”

“The other end of the hall connects to the  _VIP_ section.” Ygritte’s eyes were shining - and that could mean nothing good for him.

Jon’s stomach dropped like a stone. “Ygritte…”

“Relax, would you?” She ran her fingers over his torso, fidgeting with the brass buttons of his uniform. “All I want is some of the primo booze they have on  _that_ side of the bar - just to say we did it.”

“If they’re that close together, surely they’d have bouncers to keep the street people out of that side of the club.”

She was scowling at him, that “don’t be such a downer” scowl regularly leveled at him. “You know nothing, Jon Snow. You’re in uniform, tell them you’re about to deploy and wanted to spend a special night with your girlfriend.”

“And what do I say when they ask about  _that_?”

“You are such a pussy, you know that? Grow a pair and  _go_.” Before Jon could formulate another protest, she’d opened the door again and shoved him out - and knowing Ygritte, she wasn’t going to let him come back empty-handed. Dutiful and rather forlorn, Jon dragged himself down the hall, winced at each sharp breath and low moan that escaped through the cracks in the doors. Ugh, someone was asking their partner if they wanted to come, right up to and including calling her “little girl.” It was gross and off-putting, but it mainly served to remind the man of how much sex he  _wasn’t_ having.   

The bouncer guarding the curtained entrance to the VIP lounge was…intimidating, even for a well-trained soldier. Jon tried to stammer out his excuse (”Yeah, Baghdad, in the morning - and, um, just wanted…house red?”) but the man didn’t even grace him with a response. Stupid, stupid. He worked in a spooge club, no reason for that kind of guy to get on a high horse…

He’d fib. Ygritte wouldn’t know, not if he got something decently expensive - which was a painful thought on a soldier’s pay, but if it made her happy, it would be worth it. Seventy bucks, and that was only for prosseco, but it was cold and it was sparkling, and he’d seen that girl chug grape Smirnoff Ice. She wouldn’t be able to tell the difference.

The problem he had not anticipated, however, was finding the proper  _door_ again…

Oh fuck. Why hadn’t he looked for a number or something? It was on the right, he was sure - or was that from facing the other direction? So many doors with the occupied sign. Should he call her name? He didn’t dare, though how many Ygrittes could there be in one sex club? He could try to figure out which door _didn’t_ have noise emanating from it, and indeed, that was the strategy he  _did_ try, sweat dripping down the back of his collar. He paused before the first door that didn’t have lewd moans slipping from under the paneling, listening hard - nothing. Probably safe then - he opened the door.

He almost dropped the bottle immediately. “Oh shit, I’m so sorry!” 

He should have just shut the door, pretended it hadn’t happened - but the girl on the man’s lap  _did_ have red hair, which momentarily confused him. Darker than Ygritte’s, but the room was dark and had weirdly  _pink_ light. The red-haired girl in question lifted her head from off her lover’s shoulder - and oh thank Christ, it was _not_ his girlfriend.

…But oh  _Christ_ , it was  _definitely_ not his girlfriend. “ _Sansa_?”

She scrambled to cover herself with a man’s suit jacket. “I didn’t, um-”

The man on whose lap she was draped spoke up, eyes half-lidded and gravelly voice almost a drawl. “What on earth are you supposed to be, some kind of boy scout?”

“What are  _you_ doing with my sister?”

The stranger’s hands held her hips possessively, and he wanted to throttle him. “What does it look like?”

“Jon, please, don’t-”

“I thought you only had the one elder brother, Sansa, dear.”

He crossed his arms, despite the bottle making the motion awkward. “I’m Jon Snow.”

The motherfucker (ugh,  _sister_ fucker) barely twitched. “I’m sorry, am I supposed to recognize you?”

Sansa had crawled off his lap, her skirt falling back into place around her knees, still clinging to the jacket. “Jon, stop,  _please_ stop. Nobody can know about this - if Cersei hears-”

“If  _she_ hears?  _I’m_ hearing right now, and I’m going to kill him!”

“I don’t need you to protect me!”

“Are you shitting me? That’s the first thing you need!” The yelling was disturbing other patrons, doors were opening.

Ygritte, however, had found him, grabbed his elbow and  _yanked_. “Are you out of your stupid brain?”

“ _Let go_. Sansa!”

“ _You’re going to get us kicked out_.”

“ _That is my sister in there_.”

“Then she’s a big girl who can make her own choices, you fucking white knight.”

“That’s not - you don’t even-” 

But the door he’d opened had already shut, and Ygritte was dragging him plenty far away.

* * *

Her shoulders shook with nerves as she pressed a firm hand against the door. Oh God, oh God, how on earth - of all the people in the  _world_ \- It wasn’t that Sansa was close to Jon, quite the contrary. But the very  _thought_ of it…

Petyr’s fingers were suddenly at her shoulders, warm and flexing over the fabric of his jacket. “Not what you were expecting, was it?”

She didn’t turn around. “Jesus, he’s going to think I’m some kind of whore.”

“Let him think what he likes.” He bent so that his lips brushed her throat, and a hiss escaped her mouth. “That’s to your advantage - let people think what they want, and they won’t ever see what you really are.”

Was that a lesson? Sansa didn’t know what to think, except that it was an odd way to take one. Her fingers left the smooth wood of the door, reached back instead to feel the firmness, the reality of the man behind her. “So much for a secret.”

“I doubt your gallant brother travels in Lannister circles; you should be safe. And if not…I’ll take care of it.”

She turned in his arms, looking up at him quizzically. “What does that mean?”

Petyr’s thumb brushed her chin. “It means ‘trust me.’”

“I barely know you.”

“But you knew me well enough to fuck me.” Sansa’s head dipped; Jesus, she did look like some kind of whore…Baelish tilted her head back up again. “I’m not scolding you, Sansa, sweetling. Think about it, and you may find you know me better than you realize.”

Sansa couldn’t help it; she gazed at him with wide, blue eyes because she didn’t know what to think, and that was a kind of magnetic pull in itself she couldn’t just ignore. “What if I wanted to know more?”

His mouth turned down, expression thoughtful rather than scowling. “I think that’s dangerous.”

“Curiosity killed the cat?”

He smirked now. “Something like that.”

Tentatively at first, Sansa’s fingers reached forward, brushing across the bones of his hips, drawing closer. “Well…” Her voice was a dry whisper, throat sore from whimpers and cries. “I’m not actually all that fond of cats.”

There was a heady moment of silence. Sansa counted her breaths. “…Well, what a coincidence.” His fingers held her still, gripping her chin, as he leaned forward to press his mouth to hers. “Neither am I…”


	2. Second Encounter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the late posting; this weekend is my store's grand opening, so you can imagine how tired I am...  
> This is the shortest of the chapters, so plenty of walls o'text to come.

“I thought you didn’t even like Sansa.”

Jon always thought girls were supposed to have neat, clean apartments. Sansa’s bedroom at home had certainly always been spotless; Arya’s, it was true, looked like a bomb had gone off in it, but he figured that was because she was such a tomboy. Then again, so was Ygritte. There were old Chinese food containers on her table, piles of crap towered haphazardly along the floor. Who put so many socks on their couch? For what purpose?

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

Ygritte raised a red eyebrow at him, lined with freckles. “It means ‘I thought you didn’t like Sansa,’ don’t turn into a girl on me, Snow.”

Jon huffed, adjusting how he sat on the sofa, so as not to crush a packet of chips. “It’s not a matter of whether I like her or not; she’s my sister, I’m supposed to protect her from things.”

“From what, exactly?”

“I don’t know! Sexual predators?”

Ygritte huffed, blowing a lock of her thick, red hair from her eyes. “Okay…Did she look like she was in danger?”

The question gave him pause. “…No.”

“Hurt? Scared?”

“What is the point of these questions?”

“I’m  _saying_ ,” his girlfriend sighed, sitting criss-crossed on the sofa, “what did she need saving from?”

“Look, Ygritte, it’s not something you’d get, you’re not a big brother.”

Oh, that was a surefire way to piss her off, play high-and-mighty with her. The woman’s wide, blue eyes narrowed tellingly. “You wanna know what I think?” He didn’t, really, but he didn’t dare say so. “I think you’re being amazingly selfish.” Jon gaped slightly. “What do you know about your sister? You guys barely talk. For all you know, that’s something she likes, that it was  _her_ choice. I know you like getting to play the big, brave hero, but give it a  _rest_ , Jon. Not every young woman is a damsel in distress, you know. We don’t  _all_ need saving.”

He was shutting down; she would have been able to see it in the way his grey eyes darkened, the heavy tension that filled the room. For a moment, there was silence - but then she smiled, threw a sock at his head. “Mario Kart, Rainbow Road. Loser has to give the winner head.” Jon smiled in spite of himself. She was a weird girl - yet she somehow knew just how to cheer him up.

* * *

On his desk, her legs were spread, his warm palms holding her by the thigh to keep her still. It ached a little, at the hips, to have her legs so far apart, but Sansa did not give a moment of protest. On the contrary, all her whimpers were of the encouraging sort, her head falling back from delicious torture. The desk was cold beneath her, but the heat of their combined efforts was warming it quickly. 

Sansa might have wondered why she was doing this, but the question answered itself for her. She went back to the club - in the middle of the afternoon, when it was sure to be closed - because she supposed she was lonely; or because he had turned her on that much; perhaps a combination of the two, but more likely, because he was just so  _right._ She knew him (somehow, she didn’t pretend to understand how) and he knew her, in some ethereal way that went beyond words. She reckoned that Baelish must not understand it fully either, but they both gave into it. Sansa was willing to be as foolish as the world thought her in this regard, to dive fully into the sordid to escape the soul-crushing atmosphere of her life with the Lannisters. This was respite, relief, and rescue.

It was possible it was the same for Petyr.

He didn’t ask her why she was there, just pulled her into the office, muttered, “No calls,” into his desk intercom, and dragged her to him, soundlessly. Mouths collided, gave and took, for several near-quiet minutes before his mouth brushed against her ear and whispered, “Let me show you my sharp tongue, little girl.”

And oh, he was showing her. Sansa’s fingers wove into his dark and grey hair as her head fell back, breathing labored, chest heaving. This was mind-blowing, Joffrey had  _never_ done something like this to her. She might have wondered, briefly, how he got so  _good_ at this, but honestly, she didn’t care to know; instead, the girl focused on the hot sweep of his tongue, his methodical approach that sucked from her the evidence of her intense arousal with an enjoyment she had never expected any man to have. And how Petyr praised her, called her pretty and pink and clean. “Don’t shave off all these red curls now, sweetling,” he told her when she seemed shy; he hadn’t seen her like this before, after all, and Sansa had heard enough of men’s lewd talk from business that she knew what societal expectations were. “It’s too perfect. Give me something to think about tonight.” 

She gave into him and  _loved_ it. 

Somewhere in the middle of his attentions, Sansa had stroked his hair, enjoying the grey along his temples and panting. “I-I can, when you’re done - I don’t mind.” He glanced at her, not stopping in his ministrations. She bit her lip. “Return the favor?”

Petyr still did not pause, only speaking because he licked her from his lips, and she shuddered. “Ah.” He kissed just atop her swollen nub and the girl whimpered, fingers clenching on the desk. “Not today, sweetling.” His voice was husky as he pressed a damp kiss to her inner thigh. “This is perfect. I want to see you undone, I want to savor it.” Jesus Christ, this was how stupid girls fell in love. What planet was he from? Were there really men like this, or was she dreaming? Was it just him? What in the hell  _was_ he?

Sansa didn’t know. Frankly, in the heat of the moment, she didn’t care, fingers woven into his hair to pull him closer, to let her grind wantonly against his mouth. Her cry was strangled when she hit the climax, louder than she’d have wanted, nearly a sob of desperation and relief. He didn’t stop as she came down, though, soothing her with gentle swipes of his warm, slick-covered tongue, waiting for her shivers to subside before he righted her clothing and stood before her at the desk. Sansa’s arms wrapped his, her legs circled his hips, and she pulled him closer for a kiss of  _profound_ gratitude. She liked the tang of her on his lips, which she hadn’t expected, but it was so much more  _intimate_ that way, more vulnerable.

Perhaps that was the point, though? A shot of heat raced up the girl’s spine; next time, she was determined, she was going to be the one to make  _him_ come undone. It was a wicked thought, and she suppressed a wicked little grin for it.

Petyr’s mouth rested against her temple for a moment. This close, her ear was pressed to his chest, and she could hear his heart beating, slowing, calming; he’d gotten worked up over her. It made her smile again. Even in the midst of sex he never seemed worked up more than strictly physiologically. There was a long silence before he cleared his throat. “When do you think you’ll be available again?”

Dear God, he was asking her! She was doing better than she thought, than she ever could have imagined. Sansa smiled into his chest, enjoyed the smell of him, woody and spicy and tinged now with her. She tried to smother it as she looked up at him, but her eyes still glowed. “I have a photo shoot on Thursday afternoon, and Cersei never stays for the full thing. I could be by after that.”

“Hm.” He said nothing for a moment, but then pressed his lips against her temple. “Fine, good.”

She felt a little stupid, just sitting there with her body wrapped around him, holding him close and enjoying his warmth. Would he think her needy?

Sansa didn’t care enough to ask.

* * *

Five o’clock. They’d be opening up soon. Petyr sat at the bar, watched the wait staff stock bottles. The working girls could wear jeans and t-shirts this early in the night, polishing glasses and laughing to one another, enjoying themselves like any other girls might do. He was drinking scotch and thinking of her.

The bouncer came up to him, voice a low whisper. “Sir.” Littlefinger glanced in his direction but said nothing. “There’s a kid at the door. Says he’s Catelyn Stark’s stepson, he needs to talk to you.”

Whoever he was, he must not be entirely stupid, dropping the one name that would pique his interest enough to allow him to come in. Baelish nodded once and went back to sipping his scotch on the rocks. A moment later, the boy came in.

Honestly, he was disappointed, a sigh escaping through the nostrils. “Well, if it isn’t Scout Snow. What can I do for you this evening, son?”

The young man’s fist clenched at his side. “I’m not your son.”

“Thank goodness for that.”

His lip curled into a sneer beneath a gruff mustache. “I’m a corporal in the National Guard, I want some fucking respect.”

“Hm.” Petyr stood, setting his drink to the side, fingers at his chin. “And I want an island in the Seychelles. Tell me, do they really let you have such wild hair in the Guard? I’d have thought it would be all buzz cuts and friendly tummy rubs.”

The boy started towards him but stopped and seemed to think better of it when his eyes met the cold, steely ones of Baelish’s bouncer. “I came here to talk to you.”

“So talk. I’m a busy man, and this is a courtesy.”

“I want to know what it is you’re doing with my sister.”

The proprietor smirked, hands fitted elegantly behind his back. “You’re not a little boy. You know the answer to that.”

“I want to  _know_.”

“I’m screwing her. Obviously.”

Snow was stupider than he looked, and that didn’t surprise him, given who his father was; the idiot lunged forward, right fist raised for a strike, but Petyr didn’t even flinch. The boy was down on the ground faster than he’d been on his feet, tackled by no less than  _two_ of his guards, though one was in the outfit of a waiter, the better to be deceptive. One had a foot on his arm, the other on his back, and the boy wheezed. He’d had combat training, it  _wasn’t_ supposed to go down like this!

Littlefinger stepped over to him, kneeling ever so briefly. His voice was low, steely; Jon might have honestly called it frightening were he a lesser man. “Now listen to me,  _boy_ , because I am only going to say this once: don’t get between me and what I want. I don’t care how you’re related to her, when I’m done with you, they’ll need dental records to identify your remains. Is that clear?” Jon didn’t answer. One of the goons kicked him in the ribs and he wheezed. “Is that  _clear_?”

“Oh, yes, sir, Mr. Baelish,  _sir_.”

Petyr just smirked at his sarcastic insolence. “Hang on to that attitude, son. See how it gets you. And let me also make this  _very_ clear to your pea-sized Stark brain.” Snow bristled and wriggled against his captors, but to no avail. “That girl is mine. Sansa is  _mine_.” The way he said it made the young man’s blood run cold. “She was always going to be mine. There’s fuck all you can do about it, and I don’t recommend you try.” He nodded to his lackeys and they dragged the soldier to his feet, wincing from his bruises. Baelish straightened, shorter than the boy, but far, far and away more dangerous. “Now, I don’t want to see your pretty boy face around here again, hm? Or it isn’t going to stay Daddy’s boy pretty.” Jon glared at him but said nothing. Littlefinger turned his back and it was all the dismissal he was going to get. He didn’t even listen to the sound of his heels scraping the floor as he was dragged out.

Instead, the man pulled out his phone, a pleased smirk playing across his mouth, bringing up the text app. There was only one person worth talking to. “Think about me tonight, pretty girl. Send me a picture so I know how you liked it.” He slipped the device back into his pocket and supposed he hoped she didn’t find out about this, but realistically, he really didn’t care. If he knew her like he thought he did - like he  _knew_ he did - Sansa wasn’t going to care either.

How foolish people would be to think something like  _this_ could be stopped.


	3. Confrontation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Challenges for this chapter included a drunken headbutt. I have such mature and sober followers.

“Stand on the left.”

Sansa’s hands were resting against the mantelpiece, her torso soaking up the warmth of the fire. Her first response was a purr; Petyr had returned to stand behind her, one foot between her own, breathing the words against her neck, his fingers running up and down her pale, satin blouse with idle satisfaction. “Mm, why…”

His lips brushed her ear, the bare suggestion of a kiss. “Tradition. Stand to my left.”

The young woman sighed, detaching herself from both the fireplace and from him. Less hazy with lusty sensation, she shook her head clear, eyes bright and lips smiling. “Okay, I’m on the left. Now what.”

“Now…” He slipped a glass into her hand, the cup of which was barely as large as her palm. “Try it.”

Sansa did as bid, small, delicate and lady-like sips - which was a good approach, because the liquor was strong. She would have choked had she been gulping it down the way Joffrey drank his beers. She smiled, tongue catching the drops on her lips. “I like it - it’s kind of sweet.”

Petyr returned the smile, more quietly, eyes impossible to read. “It’s port.”

“Ahh…So passing to the left…”

He nodded at her. “Tradition.”

This was not what she had expected to happen. Since Cersei had taken Margaery on as her client - reluctantly and only with pressure from her father - Sansa had become near invisible with the Lannister clan. There were still fittings, photo shoots, practices - but nothing at all like before.  _Margaery_ was being made into the star girl of the firm. It was possible that a part of Sansa mourned her teenage dreams, but those dreams had become nightmares. And perhaps that was part of growing up, too? Changing dreams? Or just  _changing one’s mind_? With Cersei preoccupied with hating the newest girl and Joffrey busy pawing at her, Sansa could disappear for hours at a time and never be missed. She could start planning her  _escape_.

It was, of course, not that simple, and this led into the second event she had not expected:

“I promised to teach you to drink,” he said to her one afternoon at the door of the Lannister house, having dropped off paperwork for Tywin. His voice was low so as not to be overheard, but the face he wore was that public mask, the one no one questioned for its benign appearance. It always made Sansa’s stomach knot a bit.

She worked to keep her face as pleasantly neutral as his, and she was getting better at it all the time - good teacher, after all. “I didn’t think that was a promise - perhaps more like a threat.”

He smirked at her, just barely. “I have a free evening - Thursday. Seven thirty.”

Nervous heat leaped through Sansa’s gullet, heart pounding. “Are you asking me out?”

“In, actually.” And with no more notice than that, he handed her his card - his business card, which should only have his business address on it; but she flipped it over and there, in his tight and elegant scrawl, was the address on Harren Ave. Petyr didn’t wait for her answer. Either he was arrogant enough to assume he knew it, or he did not want to be seen speaking with her overly long and would wait for her to get in contact with him. Probably, Sansa considered, a mixture of the two.

So yes, she hadn’t been expecting that.

And it was complicated. This… _relationship_  (if, indeed, it could be called that. What did one call the person you screwed who worked with your enemies and owned a sex club but treated you with surprising respect?) was complicated in its very simplicity. Like a fool, Sansa had never set any rules, any by-lines. She had no idea if they were even exclusive, though certainly she was not the type to go running around with every boy in the city. But then again, she hadn’t thought she was the type to do… _this_. What on earth did she even know about herself anymore?

She didn’t wonder if she would have a hard time leaving him if escape presented itself - she refused to wonder that, because no man was worth staying in that hell hole, she knew that now. She didn’t wonder, but yes, she sort of did, even though she knew the answer. Knew it, but didn’t. But whatever, that wasn’t the important part - what if Petyr  _helped_ her get out? Would he do that? Might he? If it benefited him in some way, and she had yet to find a way that might happen - but she was thinking on it all the time, waking, sleeping, even with him. It was why she was willing to chance coming out to his home on Thursday at seven thirty and willing to accept the glass of port.

And because she wanted to. No sense lying about it, she’d wanted to do that.

God. Life was so hard sometimes, even the parts that should be easy. Perhaps especially those parts.

“I’m glad you like it,” he told her, sipping at his own small glass.

Sansa’s blue eyes glowed from the light of the fire, danced and glittered. “And when are you going to teach me to drink good brandy so I don’t act like a school girl.”

“We’ll work up to that,” he assured her, which was a dangerous thing to say, because it implied  _more_ interactions. It wasn’t that Sansa expected him to suddenly lose interest, to cut her out - though given her past, it wasn’t an irrational fear - but with nothing assured, their future, such as it was, was completely uncertain. Petyr’s free hand wrapped around Sansa’s chin, parted her lips slightly. “It takes a lot of movement of the mouth. It’s very strong, and if you move your jaw around it helps to soften the experience…”

Sansa’s eyes grew heavy, the alcohol giving her an aching feeling between her hips. Yes, she did want him, however foolish that might be. She set her glass on the mantle, over his shoulder so that he was caged between her and the fire. Her mouth was red with the reflection of the flame. “Mr. Baelish, some girls would take that as innuendo.”

Usually she would expect him to smirk and act superior and pleased with himself. But trapped as he was by her, he suddenly shut up, eyes fixed on her face. “Might they? And what do you take it as, Ms. Stark?”

Sansa didn’t respond - verbally, anyway. She’d made a promise to herself, that at their next encounter, she would get the upper-hand over this enigmatic man. Her reply was the press of her lips to the right of his Adam’s apple, just below the jaw, where the skin was soft, despite the prickle of stubble. Her tongue darted out to taste him, the tang of his cologne, and the wet mark turned cool as soon as she drew away, and her partner shivered. This was going to be fun; she hadn’t anticipated how very  _fun_ it could be, to put one’s self in a position that  _appeared_ submissive but - in actuality - possessed all of the power. Was that why he liked it so much?

The girl knelt before him very, very slowly, her fingers dragging down his torso all the while. There was also, perhaps surprisingly, a genuine desire on her part to see him enjoy himself because of her. Yes, to see him lose all control, but experience pleasure as well. It made her gullet warm. This could be a gift, a moment of genuine human connection, not a tawdry exchange. Her fingers wrapped themselves behind his knees and ran up the back of his thighs, to hold the strange gentleman in place before her. Petyr didn’t move, still holding his glass and breathing growing heavy. Perhaps the fire would make him sweat? He never gave a word of protest as the girl’s mouth met his flesh, his only verbalization a husky, shaking moan, low in the dim light of the room. 

The coolness left by Sansa’s slick tongue stood in stark contrast to the heat of the far-too-close-for-comfort fireplace. The girl’s efforts alone were enough to make sweat bead along his brow, but this was a kind of torture in its opposites - but Petyr was not about to move. He watched her every motion, brushed back the long tendrils of her equally fiery hair as they fell into her face. And oh, he was gentle about it, did not force himself against the girl, let her set her own pace with her own intention of exploration. It seemed rather clear her experience in this was limited, but what she lacked there she  _more_ than made up for in two very important traits: curiosity and enthusiasm.

Sansa’s sheer earnestness drove him over the edge before long; not a loud moment, his head tipping back against the mantle, his fingers knotted into her red hair, which was definitely a dream he had had for a considerably long time…She was careful about straightening his trousers, watching him breathe heavily - but she did not get up.

No, the Stark girl beamed up at him, still kneeling. She dragged herself away from the hearth now, so that she could settle on his Persian rug. Sansa loved its sumptuousness, dragged her fingers over the soft tufts of the fabric with caressing enjoyment; loved its reds and blacks, its blues and greens and golds. Imitating his well trained girls at the club, the poses of the more experienced women at photo shoots (the ones no longer marketed for their innocence but for different traits altogether), she sprawled herself out on the rug, hands above her head, position one of complete willingness. “I want you to take me right here,” she said, voice a little raw from what she’d just done. “Right now.” Sansa was becoming bolder in her desires, confidence bolstered simply by having someone who  _encouraged_ such sexual explorations.  

Petyr said nothing for a moment, drinking her in as his breathing evened out. “…I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

That pout. “Why not?”

“Stains on the rug.”

Sansa scoffed at him, half sitting up. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Mmm.” Baelish knelt before her, caught her mouth with his own to feel how hungry she was, to taste a brief moment of salt on her lower lip courtesy of him. She seemed intent on  _devouring_ the man, whereas Petyr’s actions were slower; plodding; considered. He detached from her and she actually moaned slightly, lips still parted. She was doing these things on purpose. “I’m much older than you are,” the man remarked, and the girl snorted slightly. “When you get to be my age, you think about these things - aren’t quite as ruled by your nethers, you know.”

“ _Aren’t you_?” Her voice was a low whisper, heavy with desire, and Sansa’s hand roamed over her lover’s stomach, trying to entice him back to the state of arousal she’d just helped inspire in him.

Petyr caught her hand - but only pulled it away because his other hand was lifting up her skirt. “Not that I’m scolding you,” he assured her, noticing how damp she was even through her undergarments. These he was pulling down and the girl wiggled obligingly out of them for him. He could see her, smell her, and she had a point, it was hard to refuse something  _so perfect_. Petyr dragged her fingers up her own leg until they touched that sacred spot, smirked with pleasure as she gasped. He moved her wrist so that the hand gyrated in a circle, and Sansa soon followed the motion obediently. “You’re perfectly charming.”

“Am I?” She was leaning her open mouth close to his, clearly seeking out more kisses. He did not indulge her - yet. “Are you perfectly charmed?”

There was that smirk again, the purr at the back of his throat. He made sure she was stroking herself in the ways he knew she liked and leaned back. “Don’t move,” was his order, and the girl whimpered as he labored to stand, leg half-asleep from kneeling, and left the room.

Sansa was obedient as she waited, back arching as she built herself to her own ends; that was easy, seeing her partner enjoy what she could do so much had built a fire low in her stomach, and it was one she stoked now without difficulty. Less than a minute later, though, and Petyr returned, Sansa’s head snapping back up to see what had taken him away in the first place. The girl’s jaw dropped open, and not from pleasure. “You have  _got_ to be kidding-”

Mr. Baelish said nothing: he was carrying a towel. Kneeling before his young lover once more, he slid one arm beneath her knees and pulled gently upwards. “Up you go, now.” When her hips arched, he slid the folded towel beneath her, and only smirked as Sansa glowered at him. “It’s a very nice rug.”

“Uh huh.” She had stopped her motions in her irritation, red brows drawn together. “And what am I?”

“A  _very_ nice distraction. I didn’t say stop…” Any irritation Sansa had at her personal offerings being weighed against the cleanliness of a  _carpet_  were smoothed over by her lover’s mouth on hers, his hands running over her, undressing her stitch by stitch. There were moments where Sansa wondered if she was in love with Petyr: when she might lie awake in her bed, all alone, reflecting on such stolen interactions; when he was buried inside of her, breath hot and damp against her throat, but only then in the back of her mind as most thought was white oblivion. Her first consideration, when the question presented itself, was no, because this was nothing like Joffrey. That tenant was abandoned as soon as it was taken up - whatever she’d felt for Joffrey hadn’t been love, even if she’d wanted to marry him, even if she’d wanted to give him children and grow old together. She didn’t know what it was, she didn’t know what to call it, but what she knew was that it hadn’t been  _real_. Somehow, this, this moment with Petyr, this was far realer. Was it love, then? She hadn’t the first idea. She felt almost afraid to find out. Worse, however, she was afraid of the notion of sharing  _any_ of this with the man carefully wrapping her legs around his hips. She couldn’t trust Petyr Baelish - which was why she  _should not_ be doing this, but it couldn’t be stopped. Sansa needed it perhaps as badly as he did. But she also knew, for however foolish she was, she couldn’t trust him with something as vital as her  _emotions_.

Probably, this whole torrid affair was a mistake.

At least until it ended, she was determined to regret none of it.

* * *

It was becoming distressingly comfortable, this arrangement. It wasn’t just that the pain numbed around him, she was experiencing active enjoyment in his presence more and more. Sansa wondered if Petyr ever felt the same way.

She did not ask.

“I want to go  _out_ somewhere.”

“Certainly.” He was smiling lightly, but it made the corners of his eyes crinkle, so she thought it must be real. Absently, he tucked a lock of her hair behind one ear. “We’ll go out to the club.”

The young woman’s nose wrinkled. “No, Petyr, not your  _club_. It’s always there or your house, we never go  _out_.” At the look of incomprehension he gave her, she tilted her chin down. “Like, into the rest of the world?”

Baelish was thoughtful a moment. “…There was at least one night we stayed in the car, on that old industrial road out of town.”

“Surely I don’t need to numerate all the ways that just proves my point.”

He seemed to get it, but his mouth was set in a cautious line. “We can’t just  _go out_ , sweetling. Your caretakers would  _notice_.”

But Sansa had thought of that, she shook her head fiercely, eyes bright. “I’ll disguise myself.”

“You’ll  _what_?”

“I’ll dye my hair. One of my photographers has been pushing me to try going brunette for a while, I could-”

“Out of the question.” His fingers had hold of her hair still, he ran it thickly between the pads of thumb and forefinger and Petyr’s eyes  _burned_ into her. “Is he an idiot? You’re not doing a thing to your hair.” Ah yes, Petyr’s thing with her hair, difficult to forget. How his fingers knotted in it, how he breathed deeply there, as if trying to savor the essence of her being. He’d helped reset her braid once, from one impromptu tumble, and he was always stroking it and smoothing it. Everyone had to have a hobby, though, after all.

Sansa sighed, taking care to make her blue eyes wide and appealing. “I just want to go someplace crowded and noisy and  _normal_ , just for one night. Someplace where everyone can look at us and no one will see us.” Her lover was silent - that meant he was listening. Sansa’s back straightened with the terrible beauty of hope. “I’ll wear a hat. Or a wig.”

Petyr’s mouth twitched up toward a smile, and Sansa returned it.

* * *

So many people, so many conversations in the oily, darkened bar; people laughing - too loudly, people coughing and crying and getting into drunken, meaningless arguments. It was so unrefined, so unlike an evening in Lannister company. Sansa had no idea how much she’d  _enjoy_ it until at last she had it. And Petyr, who was always so refined, so  _suave_ , dressed down in  _jeans_ of all things - he managed to look relaxed. Comfortable. Sansa wondered if he was, if this was more his style than his finely pressed suits.

She didn’t care all that much. She just knew she was having  _fun_. Even if she had to be disguised to do it, it was a positive step in the right direction, at long last.

The table they sat at was by a wall, easily defensible to her mind, and it had gouges in it from cutlery and parts were sticky. Petyr was drinking whiskey and he’d gotten her a cocktail as neither was too keen on the beer selection on tap (and frankly, Sansa couldn’t even imagine Baelish with a mug of foaming lager in his lithe hands), and it was just  _fun_. And it was  _easy_. She was laughing too, after everything she’d been through, she was actually  _laughing_. Petyr made her laugh, he was  _funny_ like this. It made her chest feel light, though the alcohol didn’t hurt that, and it was just - so - nice.

Between them on the table was a gigantic basket piled high with french fries, red and white checkered paper lining the plastic to keep the fries from spilling everywhere. It didn’t help much; they were the greasiest things Sansa had eaten since childhood,  _not_ approved on the Cersei Lannister Diet for Success. They were limp with oil, a puddle of fat congealing on the bottom of the basket and quickly soaking through the paper. But Petyr told her to stop eating like Cersei’s Little Dove, and when she did tuck in (delicately, one fry at a time to be nibbled at like a lady), he licked the salt from her thumb and the girl shivered.

 _And no one in the bar paid them any mind at all_.

“I used to come here with your mother, in college,” he said, wiping his fingers clean on a paper napkin that turned to powdery pieces as soon as it experienced any real use. “Different place then, of course.”

Sansa smiled, slipping another fry between her teeth. “Wow, you must feel  _so old_ right now.”

Petyr actually picked up a french fry and batted her on the nose with it. Sansa was astonished - and burst into laughter. “I was going to say ‘mature.’”

“Oh, right, like a fine wine.”

“Look at you, learning something after all.”

It wasn’t true, however, that no one in the bar paid them any mind at all, though Sansa certainly didn’t know it. The pair was watched  _intently_ from the bar, every peal of laughter, every time one leaned in close, observed by a brooding young man who pounded down a shot and asked for another.

“Wanna slow down there, Corporal Snow?” Ygritte watched him with a raised brow, her own beer idling half-empty between her hands. “We could get jello shots if you  _really_ feel like being a girl.”

“That’s him.” He slammed his glass back on the table. “That’s the motherfucker.” To the bartender: “I want a double.”

“Who’s what motherfucker?” his girlfriend asked, leaning closer to try to see the young man’s view.

“That one, there, at the table. The one with the  _shit eating grin_.”

“I get ya, but who is he?”

“Only the bastard who is  _fucking my sister_.”

“What?” She actually  _grinned_ , she found this  _amusing_. “No way. The one that threatened to beat you up?”

“ _Ygritte_.”

“Is that her now?”

“Of course not. Sansa’s hair is red.”

“Then either he’s cheating on her, so no real loss, or they’ve both moved on. Either way, problem solved.”

Jon grimaced like he’d just tasted bile in his mouth and threw back his double with seething outrage. “Are you kidding? That’s  _worse_.”

Ygritte cast him a look from the corner of her wide eyes. “Uh, exactly how is that worse?”

“If he’s  _cheating_ on Sansa, I really have to kick the shit out of him.”

“We are not seriously going over this again, are we?”

“It’s a matter of  _principle_ , of  _pride_ , Ygritte.”

“Jesus fuck, Jon,” she sighed, pouring the warming beer down her throat and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. “Will you just  _let it go_  already? I swear, I never should have dated one of you military types.” Jon seemed to pout at that, and she ran a mollifying hand over his knotted shoulder. “Look, they look like they’re having fun.  _You’d_ be the asshole if you just interrupted that. So can you  _please_ forget it so we can have our fucking date already?” But the corporal was no longer listening, his head picked up the way Ghost would prick his ears at the sounds of the night; for the  _disgusting, disgraceful_ man had gotten up from the table, was picking his way toward the washroom. Jon licked alcohol from his lips and tasted opportunity. “Hello? Ground control to Major Tom?”

But her boyfriend had slunk off the bar stool, well-trained eyes fixed on his objective. “I’ll be right back,” he assured meaninglessly, thoughtlessly, and he did not hear Ygritte grumble while she ordered a second drink on his tab.

The young soldier did not have long to wait, clenching and unclenching his fists as he leaned against a quiet stretch of the hall, long-outdated posters for local bands plastered all around him. The door to the restroom opened, and his adversary exited with a paper towel in his hands to be easily and casually tossed into the waiting garbage can. Jon took his cue; he stepped forward and blocked the man’s way. Petyr barely registered him, looking through the boy rather than at him, murmuring, “Excuse me,” as he made the common evasive maneuvers.

Jon, however, was set; every way Baelish turned, he followed suit, so that after the third misstep the older man sighed with frustration and actually  _looked_ at his face. Then an eyebrow twitched up, a kind of bored half-recognition of mild interest. 

The bar was full of witness and, as is common in crowded places,  _none_ could say exactly what happened next. Apparently words were exchanged, but seated at the table, the only thing Sansa heard was the loud, dull thud followed by a crash of pictures falling from walls, patrons jumping to their feet, shouts of encouragement and small yelps of fear and surprise. The girl was soon standing as well, her chair scraping against the floor and nearly tipping over in her hurry. The little she could see, through the shoulders of the gathering crowd, was Petyr pressed against the wall, half bent over and wheezing, while a younger, stronger, taller man plowed his shoulder into his stomach. Glass from shattered picture frames littered the floor, she could see some in Petyr’s hair, a bleeding gash above his left eyebrow. That position was only held a moment, though, before her lover’s knee came up to meet his attacker straight in the face and the young man scuttled back, still hunched over. Through the hands covering a profusely bleeding nose, however, Sansa got a very definite look of grey, grey eyes.

A flash of red, hot anger spiked through her middle, and the slender young woman pushed her way through the gawkers with such force that some scrambled to get out of her way.

Jon had lunged for Baelish once more, though the other man (wisely) was more set on evasion than meeting him in physical combat. Her half-brother was taller than she was, broad shouldered and stockier, very clearly Stark where she was Tully, but little could stop Sansa in an outrage, which was something he  _really_ should have remembered about her. Before the young man’s fist could meet the older gentleman’s face, Sansa had managed to knock herself into the heavier boy, forcing him to shift his weight and turn towards her-

And her palm fell with a stinging, ringing slap straight over his cheek.

A few in the crowd were whooping their approval, others giving low, jeering “Oooo!”s, and Ygritte at last had been able to push her way through the crowd in time to see her boyfriend holding his cheek more in shock than in pain, his jaw falling open. “… _Sansa_?” But her hair - she looked like Arya, grown and beautiful. The entire bar was a madhouse.

“You’re  _such_ an ass, Jon, you know that? You’re a stupid, thoughtless  _ass_.” Tears of white hot rage were stinging the girl’s eyes, and she turned back to her lover with her fake hair flipping over her shoulder. Petyr had one hand to his cut, examining the damage, and Sansa smoothed her arms over him. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” he wheezed slightly. If Mr. Baelish had qualms about being rescued by a young woman, they weren’t readily apparent; if anything, even in his mild shock and surprise, his eyes seemed to glow silvery with a kind of pride in the girl.

Ygritte elbowed her way through, and the patrons of the bar began to disperse when it became clear no more blows were about to be rained down on anyone. She dusted off Jon even as the other girl checked on her own paramour, but then quickly extended her hand with a kind of goofball smile. “Hey, I’m Ygritte. I’m the one dating your idiot brother.”

Sansa’s manners were usually impeccable; not so tonight. She glared  _balefully_ at the other red haired girl, undeservedly so, and lowly hissed, “He isn’t  _my_ idiot brother.”

Jon looked truly hurt now, staggering forward, eyes entreating. “Sansa! I was just trying to help you, okay? To  _protect_ you!”

“Well you’re really shitty at it,  _Jon_!” Her voice was louder than it should have been, a private conversation in a very public place. People were still staring, and how could they not be. Petyr might have tried to pull her away, but did not seem eager to have this venom cast in his direction. Sansa was a she-wolf with hackles raised. “Where in the  _hell_ were you when I needed protection, hm? When Joffrey was beating me up and Cersei was telling me to starve myself if I wanted to get anywhere? Where was  _anyone_ then?”

He looked astonished, outraged, shocked beyond all better comprehension. Even Ygritte looked awkward, but she was completely unable to stop this familial tirade. “Sansa-” His protest was a weak one, palms up and open to her; his attempts at being a loyal member of the family were as wasted on Sansa as they were on her mother.

She cut him off, one hand raised and lips pursed. “You stay the hell away from me - from us - got it?” Pointedly, the girl twined her fingers with the older man’s and pulled him from his position against the wall, headed for the exit. “Come on, Petyr, let’s go.” He followed mutely, eyes fixed on the girl with a look of such  _deep_ impression, Ygritte wondered whether she hadn’t been right along.

There wasn’t time to worry about that, though, certainly not to rub her boyfriend’s face in it; she’d rarely seen Jon looking so dejected. Perhaps the last time he was passed up for promotion by his idiot superior officers, but little else. The young woman sighed, draping her arm across his shoulders. “Come on, Snow. Let’s get home before that beast of yours shits all over the couch.” She pulled her own boy toy along as well, but Jon went with considerably less enthusiasm.

* * *

Petyr hissed. “What on earth are you using on my face, hydrochloric acid?”

Sansa pursed her lips at him. “Don’t be a baby, it’s just rubbing alcohol.”

“It  _stings_.”

The man was leaned against his desk, bracing his hands on the edge while Sansa stood on her toes, eyes tight with focus. She’d washed the blood away, and the cut didn’t look quite so bad now. She supposed head wounds bled more anyway. “It’s supposed to sting, it’s astringent. It’ll help close the wound.” Petyr winced despite her delicate treatment, and the girl huffed, hand that held the bottle propped against one hip. “Would you rather this wasn’t enough and you needed stitches?”

“What, and ruin this handsome face for all the girls?”

Sansa dabbed at him a little more forcefully and the man yelped again. With a snort, she added, “Some girls really go in for scars, you know.” Petyr didn’t have a quip for that, his eyes dark. Sansa knew why; she ran her hand gently down his cheek. “Hold still, I’m going to tape some gauze there.”

Petyr’s eyes watched every movement of her body as she turned away, bent over his first-aid kit and carefully unwrapped the sterile medical gauze. That stupid wig had long since been abandoned and her own, perfect hair shown through once more, dark and fiery in the low light of his study. He ran his tongue over his lower lip but stopped when she straightened again, medical tape hanging off one thumb. Baelish was silent as the first patch of it held the gauze in place, but found himself speaking despite his attempt at quiet, voice hoarse and low. “That isn’t something your mother would have done, you know.”

Sansa’s blue eyes met his green-grey ones, but only for a split second before she focused on the task at hand once more. “What’s that mean, exactly?”

“Put a lover over family. Not her style - family, duty, honor. The old Tully standbys.”

A dark look crossed the girl’s face, a sneer lifting her lip. A shudder ran down the man’s spine, but only because he liked it on her so well. “Jon isn’t my brother. He never was.” With a bit more force, she put the last piece of tape in place and stepped back to admire her handiwork, the gauze staying firmly where it was meant to. “And I guess I don’t know if you’ve noticed this, but I’m  _not_ my mother.”

Slowly, very slowly, as if he was deciding or trying not to spook a wild animal, Petyr’s hands reached for Sansa, caught her by the hips. He pulled the girl closer, and her anger melted off her like snowflakes on her warm cheeks, her hands coming up to brace herself against his chest. Baelish’s breathing was slow, shallow, gaze intently focused on  _her_. “I was well aware.” There was that husky tone again. Petyr’s face was so near hers, she could feel his breath brush across her cheeks, tinged with mint and whiskey. He seemed to lean forward with the intent to kiss her, but drew away again, mouth set in a line for a moment. “Nor was I complaining.” He did kiss her now - but at the throat, not the lips. The plodding of his mouth was gentle, but hungry, the tightness of his fingers at her hips possessive.

Sansa’s arms wrapped instinctively around the man’s shoulders, and she wondered if he could feel the crazy tattoo that was her heartbeat. Oh God. Oh God. She might be in love with him. She might be in love with Petyr Baelish. How could she have been so stupid, why had she kept seeing him, kept pursuing that comfort? This was so dangerous, the desire to trust and give herself over. Was she mental? Petyr finally kissed her on the mouth, eyes closed, frustratingly tender but brimming with the desire to  _have_ her. She might have said it, if his tongue hadn’t been in her mouth.

Sansa swallowed when they parted and he pulled the shirt over her head, mouth pressing worshipfully at the tops of her breasts.  _I’m not telling him_ , she swore to herself. She needed to have some dignity, after all, some power - and she was true to this, even as he pulled her onto his lap on the desk, took her and fed upon her and  _fed_ her in ways that made her toes curl and electricity pump through every nerve and fiber. She felt whole, distressingly so, for the first time in a  _long_ time, but she bit into his shoulder and refused to say it.


	4. Alliance

Jon’s apartment didn’t need a doorbell, Ghost served more than well enough. In fact, he knew there were visitors before they’d even finished mounting the steps, his large ears pricked up, nose to the air. The massive beast padded quickly to the door, his woofs loud but low; Ghost seemed to understand that, as an apartment dog, he needed to keep quiet, but he could only do so much about his natural voice. Jon got to the door shortly after the first ring, hair still damp from the shower, and opened it on his guest. The grin spread across his cheeks on instinct: Robb.

The eldest Stark son was perfect where his half-brother was still a mess, dark red hair brushed against his head, a long camel-colored overcoat complimenting his tall, trim figure, the grey tie that lay impeccably against his throat. Robb had his hands in his pocket and his smile was conservative, confused, but still definitely present. “Long time no see.” Jon embraced him, that masculine type of hug that involves only one arm around the shoulder from each party, and the young Mr. Stark entered the slightly messy apartment.

Robb was in graduate school, a university up north the Starks had patronized and attended since the school’s foundation. Jon didn’t think he fit in a soldier’s apartment, especially with the mess Ygritte was slowly migrating to his pad as well as hers, and it was possible he didn’t fit, but Robb was too good to ever make that apparent. All he did was knock one of Ghost’s slimy balls from off the couch and seat himself comfortably and with his usual, polite grace. Jon was reminded he was Catelyn’s son as well as their father’s.

But all the young man did was balance his hands at his knee and grin freely at his brother. “I feel like I haven’t seen you in forever. I’ve got so much shit to tell you.”

Jon’s mouth twitched in a conservative smile, noticing the way Robb’s blue eyes lit up. “Yeah? Such as?”

“This one stays under your hat, yeah?”

“Sure.”

The young poli-sci student’s chest puffed, his mouth pursed in a slightly smug smile. He said, after a long moment, “I’m getting married.”

Jon couldn’t pretend to not be surprised, it showed plainly on his very-Stark face. “You’re kidding!” Robb shook his head. “Do they know yet?” He didn’t need to specify, his brother would know to whom he referred.

Robb shook his head. “Not yet. You know how Mom would be about it, and especially now with the lawsuit, with Dad-” The young man sighed, running his fingers through his dark curls of hair. “And she’s a bit different, she’s not really their  _type_ -”

It was at this moment Ygritte strolled lazily from the bedroom. Dressed in one of Jon’s shirts and a pair of his boxers (all too big for her), her red hair still a mess from bed, she made quite a sight. She was raw and wild, yawning and idly scratching her butt before she took notice of the presence of a guest on her lover’s couch. “Oh. Company, huh?” Ghost’s tail hit the floor in a dull pattern of “thump, thump, thump,” by way of morning greeting. Robb just stared. “Guess I better go put a bra on,” and she continued her morning sojourn across the apartment.

Robb’s eyes followed her, wide with the blue swallowed up by black pupils, until she disappeared into another room. “…Isn’t that your kitchen?”

Jon sighed through his teeth, scratching awkwardly at his own mess of brown curls. “Ygritte’s stuff is kind of everywhere…”

After another moment, Robb shook his head and cleared his throat. “So what was so important you couldn’t tell me over the phone? It was hard to swing this, you know.”

Jon sat beside his brother, fingers tapping nervously against the arm of the sofa, working his jaw back and forth. “I’m worried about Sansa.”

 _That_ was enough to get the young man’s attention, it was one of the few things that was ever sure to do just that. Robb sat up straighter, shoulders stiff, the posture of one making ready - but ready for what? “What do you mean, why are you worried?” And then, with a subtle note of panic: “What’s wrong with Sansa?”

Jon put out a hand, an attempt to steady his brother. “It’s this guy she’s been hanging around with-”

“Is Joffrey pulling shit again? I’ll break that little fucker’s kneecaps. When I’m done, he’s going to-”

“It’s not Joffrey. To tell the truth, I’m not sure which one is worse…”

Robb paused, assessed the situation, mouth a hard line as his mind whirled. “…Well, what is it?”

“It’s not just  _any_ guy; I mean, if it was someone normal, maybe I wouldn’t worry so much, but you know she never listens to me.”

Robb snorted. “Well, Arya doesn’t listen to me, either - but I know what you mean; her so far from home, it would be better if she listened to  _someone_. God knows if Arya was bringing guys home, you’d be out the door with the shotgun before Dad was.”

Jon’s mouth twitched in a half-hearted smile at that thought. If Sansa was Robb’s little sister in every way, then Arya was his. “Thankfully, we have some time before that happens.”

Robb scratched Ghost behind the ears, the way he and all his siblings liked, a thoughtful and amused expression on his lips. “I don’t know about that…”

“What?” Ugh, time for that later. He shook his head to focus. “This guy’s older, for a start - like…a  _lot_ older.”

“Well, how much older is he?” Jon told him. “That’s a lot.”

“He does some kind of work with the Lannisters, I guess that’s how they know one another.”

“I mean, that’s not… _automatically_ a red flag. Dad did when Robert was still around.”

“Yeah, but that’s not the worst part.”

“Freakin’ a, Jon, what’s the worst part?”

Ygritte must have been wearing off on him, because he almost relished the anticipation of the look on his brother’s face. “He kind of owns a sex club.”

If Robb had been drinking, he would have spit his beverage halfway across the room. “ _Jesus Christ_!” Jon laughed in spite of himself. “What, this is funny now?”

“Your face kind of is…”

“And you’ve been  _talking_ to her about this?”

“I’ve been  _trying_. But then I kind of sort of headbutted him in a bar and she told me to stay away from her, so…”

“Oh Jesus.” Robb had his elbows resting on his knees with his head almost between them as he leaned forward, fingers knotting through his dark hair. “Oh, fuck me. This is bad, this is  _really_ bad. What’s his name?”

“Baelish.”

“The one who’s obsessed with Mom?” Snow laughed harder. “ _This isn’t funny, Jon_!”

“I mean, fuck, imagine what I’ve been going through!”

“I’ll talk to her.” Robb was up, which knocked Ghost off his spot of lying on his foot, but the massive beast just whined and resettled himself. “I’ll get her to see sense.”

Jon stood from the couch to see his guest to the door, experiencing his first breath of relief since this whole debacle had started. “Yeah, good luck.”

“Sansa will listen to me,” Robb asserted with a steely look in his blue eyes, fisting his hands into his coat pockets. “She always listens to me. You’ll see. And, uh, say bye to Ygritte for me.” With no more word than that, the young man had disappeared, and the black-sheep brother sighed, scratching fingers through his hair.

Ygritte reappeared from the kitchen, a can of beer in her hand, the top of which she popped as she hopped effortlessly onto the couch. “Your brother leave?” Jon nodded. “Well fuck, I put on a bra for nothing.” Without a moment’s hesitation, she reached behind her, beneath her shirt, and unclasped it, managing to pull it out one sleeve of the shirt; Jon never could figure out how she did that. “Are we marathoning Top Gear or not?”

Jon smiled at her - a soft smile, the kind men didn’t show to anyone but their girlfriends. He approached the couch from behind, laying his hands atop her shoulders and bending forward to kiss her on the cheek. “Hey.”

“Hm.”

“What did you think of him?”

“What?”

“Robb, what did you think?”

“You mean what did I think of Mommy and Daddy’s pretty boy favorite who gets all the girls, all the top grades, all the scholarships, and all the glory while you get shunted into the National Guard?” Ygritte could feel Jon’s hands twitch at her shoulders, could sense the hurt that would line his hang-dog face. She sighed; she knew Jon’s complicated, deep feelings for his family. The wild girl tilted her head up. “He seemed really nice, Jon.”

Jon smiled again, more conservatively, and seemed mollified. “Well…good.”

“Now, get your ass on the couch with me, huh?” The young man settled beside her and she started up the television.

* * *

One new message: “ _Did you miss me when you woke up this morning_?”

Sansa rolled her eyes, but her mouth was smiling. “ _Do you want me to answer honestly or do you want your ego flattered?”_

_“Both, ideally.”  
_

They didn’t use the text apps standard to their phones, that would be too easy to have prying eyes “accidentally” flip on their phones and check. No, it was a separate messaging app, one that deleted messages automatically, one that didn’t include their names, didn’t include their numbers. Safe. Safe was the watch word.

Sansa didn’t have to answer, her phone pinged with another waiting message: “ _Are you in your dressing room?”_

_“Uh huh.”  
_

_“Show me.”  
_

_“I’ve got to get ready for a shoot.”  
_

_“Don’t be a naughty little girl, now. Show me how much you missed me_.”

Sansa hadn’t heard the door open, hadn’t heard the soft footfalls, and she jumped as soon as hands came down gently upon her shoulders. Petyr? But he…No, he wouldn’t, it wouldn’t be safe to be seen like this in the middle of the day, he- The girl turned, her jaw dropped. “ _Robb_?”

Her big brother was grinning down at her. “Hey there, gorgeous.”

Sansa absolutely squealed in her glee, phone forgotten on her dressing table, hopping up to wrap her arms around her brother’s neck and bounce on her toes. “ _I can’t believe you didn’t tell me you were coming, you’re such a jerk, I’ve missed you_!”

Robb laughed, finally getting her to stop her bouncing with his arms wrapped around her back. “Easy, girl, easy!”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were in town!  _How_ did you even get out here?”

“Oh, you know, flapped my arms.” Sansa smacked his chest and he laughed again. “I wanted to surprise you.”

“You sure as hell did!”

Robb was everything an older brother should be, everything she did not appreciate about Jon; tall and strong, handsome and smart, brave and good, he had always been Sansa’s first knight in shining armor, the boy all others were judged against - until she quite lost her taste of knights and princes. Robb was the only one left who still had her esteem. In a world where even fathers were fallible, Robb was her last, girlish hope. “My adviser has a meeting with the Senator in preparation for his campaign, he may be one of the primary advisers - and if it works out, he wants me to help him with it this summer.”

“Robb, that would be fantastic!”

He grinned with straight, white teeth. “I know, right?”

“I could see you all the time!”

“Of course you could.” Robb laid his palm across her cheek for half a moment, just appreciating his sister, before he nudged her back to her seat at the vanity and he took a place on top of one of the chests. “How have you been, sis, huh? Now that things with Joffrey…”

Sansa’s mouth twitched, but that was not a relationship she mourned; no, not anymore, Margaery could have him as far as she was concerned… “All that matters is that he’s happy.”

Robb’s face darkened. “That’s not  _all_ that matters.”

But Sansa smiled (it might have been the practiced one she gave the photographers, the one she gave to all the Lannister clan, it was difficult to say), smoothing out the skirt she’d be wearing to the shoot. “I’m actually doing pretty well right now. I’m…using my head.”

Robb tilted his head at her, trying to hide his confusion. “Oh? Yeah?”

Ugh, not something Robb needed to hear about, really. “L-like, um, I was thinking about getting out of modeling. Going back to school. Like when my contract finally runs out? I know it’s not for a few years, but-”

Robb perked up for that. “Really? That’s fantastic!” Sansa smiled at him, a touch nervously. “What do you want to study?”

“I’m not really sure yet. I mean, I always was good with the practical side of fashion, I could still work that part of the industry.”

“Sure you could,” her brother nodded at her. “Like the year you made those Batman and Robin suits for Bran and Rickon for Halloween? You cemented your place as the coolest big sister ever that year.” Sansa laughed; that was so long ago now, like that had happened to a different person.

She glanced at her phone, sitting on the vanity table. She supposed she was a different person back then.

Perhaps Robb’s thoughts were of a similar bent, for he cleared his throat, sitting on the case, rubbing the back of his neck thoughtfully. “Jon said he’s been running into you lately.”

Wrong move. Sansa’s brow furrowed, her countenanced darkened. Little did her brother know who had taught her that particular facet to her personality - Cersei and Littlefinger both, more than likely. “Uh, did he tell you he’s been  _stalking_ me?”

“He said it was completely accidental.”

“Who  _accidentally_ headbutts someone?”

“Hey.” Robb was smiling, but this time it didn’t mollify Sansa. “If it could happen to anyone, it could happen to Jon.”

Sansa’s nose was in the air, and this was not a learned skill. She had always been a touch self-centered, a touch spoiled. It came of being the beautiful oldest girl, the perfect child - and even if she had tired of that particular role, she hadn’t dropped its habits just yet. “Despite what Jon might think, I’m  _not_ a baby who needs his protection.”

“Drop that.” Robb tugged on a loose lock of Sansa’s hair and she tilted her face back down. “You’re  _my_ baby sister, got it?” Her mouth relaxed from its pursed state, but only a touch. Robb drew a breath for his next assault. “And some of the things I’ve been hearing-”

“What, exactly, have you been hearing?” Sansa’s blue eyes, eyes that matched his, narrowed, a bit like a watchful predator. “Whatever it is, it hasn’t come from me, and shouldn’t I be the first resource for my own life?”

“Sansa, don’t be like this.”

“Like what? What should I be like?”

“I’m  _just_ saying-” He sighed through the nose and the girl inwardly twinged; disappointing Robb was as bad as disappointing her own father. “About him, not about you. That he runs some shady businesses, and you know, the whole thing with Mom when they were kids. That doesn’t bother you?”

This….hurt. Robb didn’t understand - that she knew all this, that of course she couldn’t trust Petyr - and yet even so, that was what she needed; a man as dark and as dangerous and as powerful (in subtle, careful ways) as the Lannisters, and on her side. How was she to explain Petyr couldn’t be trusted, but that she knew him, had from that first time in the club, even he’d said so. It wasn’t something that made sense, it was just something that  _was_. Ah, but how  _could_ Robb understand, safe away at school, as untouchable as he’d always been? The Lannisters couldn’t do to him what they’d done to her, he would never need Petyr Baelish.

But she wasn’t like him, and she did need that dark, untrustworthy man. Or wanted. The difference wasn’t always clear.

For either of them.

But Sansa smiled then, and it was a smile entirely taught by the man Baelish, the same way he’d taught her to drink cognac; a smile of control, that Robb believed in - perhaps because he  _wished_ to believe it. Sansa understood giving people what they wanted. “ _Robb_.” Sansa covered her brother’s hand with her own, manner that of the sweet little sister that he wanted to see. The young man relaxed considerably. “I don’t want you to worry about me. Whatever Jon’s told you, he’s blown it all out of proportion. It’s a misunderstanding. Nothing has happened.”

It was Robb’s turn to smile, manner perking up somewhat. “Nothing?”

“What do you think I’d want with a man as bad as you say?” 

Young Mr. Stark stood, planting a kiss on his little sister’s forehead. “I told him we’d work this out.”

“Right, as ever.”

“I’ll be in town a couple of days. We’ll get dinner. I’ll text you.”

“I’d like that.”

He tweaked her cheek and then he was gone, just a broad back walking out the trailer door. Sansa stared after him, stared until the door shut, and the scowl came back onto her face once more.

The girl turned back to the vanity and picked up her phone.

* * *

The security at the Mockingbird no longer asked why the girl dropped by in the afternoon, though their questions had never been very probing to begin with. Now, the man on duty simply opened the door, sometimes with a nod of his head, sometimes with a decorous, “Miss Stark.” No one interrupted Mr. Baelish in his office with his special guest, though occasionally a server would bring around a glass of lemon water for her, a mint julep for him. (”How can you drink in the middle of the afternoon?” “You call this drinking?”)

Sansa didn’t frighten easily the way she used to, she didn’t pace her lover’s office, wringing her hands. She leaned her weight against his desk and Petyr watched her from his chair, a scowl carefully etching his face as he thought - and listened to her, that had to be noted, Petyr  _always_ listened. That went a long way to making up for running a sex club and being in love with her mother, to Sansa’s mind.

“Don’t let big brother worry you, sweetling,” he soothed, running one hand over the knob of her knee. Sansa watched him and still frowned with concern. “The Lannisters can’t control you anymore, and your family is going to have to understand that neither can they.”

“If Jon is flapping his mouth to Robb, what’s next? My parents? With the lawsuit, they’re drawn tight as bowstrings as it is.”

Petyr stood and planted a kiss on her brow. Sansa’s eyes briefly closed. “A family full of nice little tattletales. Nothing has changed, Sansa; we’re sticking to the plan.” The girl nodded, her muscles feeling tight. “As soon as there’s an opportunity, I’ll buy up your contract, and then not even God will be able to help the Lannister Firm. It’s straight down the line from here.”

Sansa smiled for that, slyly, darkly, her arms wrapping around her lover’s torso. “Straight down the line.”

Petyr chuckled low in his throat, the sound reverberating in his chest, before he tilted Sansa’s head up and kissed her full on the mouth. Her fingers flexed along his suit jacket. “Clever little girl…”

Sansa’s brow furrowed, a sigh escaped through the nose. “But I am worried. If Robb does say something - I don’t want to hurt my family, you know that.”

“Yes.”

“It was none of his business, anyway! His  _or_ Jon’s! Why do they only show up when it’s convenient for them? Why wasn’t Robb around when I  _actually_ needed him?”

Petyr tilted her chin back to him, eyes silver and expression inscrutable. “Because it wasn’t Robb that you needed.”

Sansa blinked up at him, bit her lip slightly. “But it’s not even my parents I’m worried about. If Robb tells Mom and Mom calls Cersei to bitch her out…” She shuddered. “She’ll be sure to make my life a hell for going behind her back.”

Petyr’s hands tightened around her. “I told you, that isn’t going to happen.”

“Petyr, I appreciate that, but we both know you can’t tell her no. Then you look suspicious, too, you’re the one who  _said_ that.”

The grip became a vice hold and Sansa quieted. She’d rarely seen Baelish’s eyes so hot, like he was the dangerous man everyone seemed to believe him to be - but Sansa wasn’t afraid. “This is idiotic.” The girl said nothing. “What do these boys think, that they can drop you off and then just take you back? I don’t think so. I don’t share that nicely. You’re mine now, Sansa, dear.” The possessive tone in her lover’s voice made Sansa shiver,  _but because she liked it so well_. “Do you think your sweet big brothers mean to break us up?”

Sansa’s jaw worked for a moment, and then she nodded. “I’m sure they’d congratulate themselves for it, too.”

His gaze went back to her face, just as hard and hot. “Are you going to let them control your choices?” Was this actually about her, or was this about him? Or perhaps was it both? But Sansa was firm, spine stretching tall in the man’s arms. She shook her head no. Mr. Baelish threatened a smile. “Do you really want a secret, little one? Throw  _all_ their lofty expectations right back at them?”

Sansa’s mouth was going dry. “What are you thinking?”

Petyr’s mouth fixed on hers for a heated moment, the edge of the desk biting painfully into her skin, something to contrast with the pleasure of his hands running over her body. He barely moved away from her when the kiss ended, lips brushing hers as he spoke. “Do something they can’t fight you on - marry me.”

Sansa almost fell over. “Are you crazy?”

“Potentially, but entirely serious.”

“People don’t just  _get married_.”

“Which is precisely my point.” His fingers dug into her hips and Sansa gasped slightly against his mouth. “Out there, you’re good little Sansa Stark, and in here, you  _beg_ me for relief. They don’t know that, and they’re never going to.  _That_ is a secret, and it’s the secret your dear, chivalrous older brothers don’t want you to have. A lover is easily gotten rid of, but what do you do with a  _husband_ , Sansa?”

The girl’s head was spinning, full of the sensation of vertigo. This was not happening. “I can’t just  _tell_ them, though, that’s-”

“And you’re not going to tell them; not Robb, not Cersei, not even Margaery when you’re being such sweet little friends - at least, not yet.” Sansa could do little else but stare at him as he unraveled the complicated threads of his plotting mind to her. “This is the partnership between  _you_ and  _me_ \- and nobody else is going to know about it.” He straightened, his fingers dragging from her hips down her thighs to rest cupping her knees. “Fuck the whole lot of them trying to make you what they want you to be, fuck them making your choices-” He leaned closer again, “-and  _we’ll_ fuck each other. This is the decision that’s yours to make, Sansa, and if your family had their way they’d never let you. What are you going to do about it?”

Sansa absolutely did not recall saying anything - but she did say yes.

* * *

When Sansa Stark was a little girl, she dreamed of her wedding day the way girls are raised to, with the ambitions of a princess and the narrow-mindedness of a spoiled and selfish girl. Her fantasy only grew in scope with experience, so that by the time she had agreed to tie herself to Joffrey Baratheon now and for all eternity, the day was going to take place in a rose garden in full bloom, in the early warmth of tender summer. All her family and friends were present in her mind, beaming, impeccably dressed - and her the most glittering of all in Chanel and Cartier. The cake was as tall as she was, to feed all their prodigious guests, a full orchestra was required for the dance floor - and Joffrey, the man that would make this entire celebration possible, would be tall and blond and handsome and _perfect_.

And so would Sansa.

She got married on a Tuesday afternoon, when the rest of the city took its lunch breaks, and not in a rose garden or even a church. A Justice of the Peace was the officiate, the only witness a court clerk, and while Petyr did look dashing in his usual Boss suit, he was not tall, and certainly not in the slightest blond. They had only been able to swing this because the shooting crew was taking an extended lunch while the lighting crew set up the next rig, and Sansa graced the courthouse in a diaphanous gown being photographed for next season’s spread, seafoam in color, and decidedly out of place to her surroundings.

There was no rice to throw, no aisle to walk down. Instead, her brand new husband was shuffling bills into the waiting hands of court officials. “I don’t think any court business happened at all today, do you?”

“Not that I’m aware of, sir.”

“Excellent. Mrs. Baelish…” Sansa’s stomach turned when Petyr called her that, and she wasn’t sure if it was from pleasure or a kind of horror that with the stroke of a pen she could be someone else entirely. Petyr’s chauffeur had parked in the underground garage, the car’s windows all deeply tinted, so that nothing but the security tape could say who had entered or left - and sadly, very soon that section of tape was going to go missing. Sansa’s fingers rested at her chin; she hoped nothing bad happened in the garage while they were there. She’d feel awful if a crime went unsolved because her new husband had made the best evidence disappear. But then again, it was a courthouse parking garage. Who would be so bold?

Petyr did not touch her in the car, he hardly even spoke to her -  _not_ the conduct of a besotted, newly-made husband. He seemed to conduct business on his phone and observe the turns his chauffeur made, but little else. The driver took them to the Luxe as easily in silence as he might have done had they been celebrating their boldest new move.

The Luxe was not the kind of hotel that rented rooms by the hour, and they could not afford to spend more than a very long lunch break, so Sansa had no idea how her new husband arranged this little indulgence of his, but she suspected it involved more money changing hands. Alone at last in the luxury suite, Petyr’s mouth finally twitched toward a smile and Sansa awkwardly played with the edges of her sleeve. Married, she was married now. In an act of rebellion, she had married a man whom she had never professed to love, a man who certainly never gave her his vow of devotion. Was she completely out of her mind, or becoming a genius of strategy, too?

It didn’t seem to matter. Petyr had uncorked the champagne with a dull pop, offered her a glass with a small dish of strawberries, and revealed his one tenderness of the afternoon: a covered silver plate of lemon cakes - for her, his bride.

Sansa was ready to consummate her union for that.

Baelish had to stop her when the girl was on his lap, leaning over him, straddling his hips on the bed while his body gave way its keen interest at the prospect of fruitful marriage. “Wait, wait…” His voice was wheezing.

Sansa’s hips did not stop their brutal, lovely movements above him. “I’m on the pill, Petyr, married couples don’t have to use condoms if they don’t want.”

He half laughed through his groans as she continued to tease him,  _his_ little minx. “Rings. We haven’t done the wedding rings.”

Christ, she’d almost forgotten. With a sigh, Sansa slid off her husband’s lap, digging through her purse absently while one damp finger collected the last crumbs of lemon cake from the sterling plate. Petyr had his ring box open already, leaning casually on the edge of the bed. It was a band of white gold with positively the  _biggest_ , most flawless sapphire Sansa had ever seen mounted in the center, edged all around with diamonds. The newly married woman reached for it and he playfully nearly closed the box on her fingers, chuckling at her squeak of surprise. For her husband, Sansa had wanted to get a plain band in well-polished platinum - but damn Cersei and her hellish contract kept hold of all but the pettiest of Sansa’s finances, so white gold was all she could afford for the moment. Yet it seemed to suit Petyr, he certainly gave no complaint at his gift - and, Sansa reasoned, she did have the rest of his life to replace it, when circumstances were more favorable.

Petyr could wear his band as he liked, they had already planned for this - though his would be worn on the right hand. He always wore at least one ring, his gold and ruby adornment, and no one would notice if he shined a little more brightly at one hand. Sansa, though, who was so carefully groomed, accessorized, catalogued - every scrap of jewelry or hint of perfume would be noticed on her, so that her own wedding ring wasn’t even hers to keep, not just yet. Rather, Petyr would hold it in trust for her, slip it on her finger whenever they actually got to play their bizarre version of house. She wondered if Petyr liked it that way, liked having something else that would always make her come back to him. But, she reasoned, she now had something she hadn’t before: the ability and time to take apart his clever mind and understand him as he refused to allow anyone else to do. Sansa was going to be the only one with power over one of the most powerful men she knew. That had a heady pleasure to it.

The ring fit well on her finger, but she couldn’t say she was surprised Petyr knew her size. Petyr knew  _everything_ , how to coax her up as he undressed her, scrap by silk scrap carefully removed so that not a wrinkle nor a tear would give their activities away. He knew how to kiss her in just such a way to stifle her cries from the outside world. And he knew how to hold her against the wall as he took her, how to get her legs around his hips and how to position her in such a way so that he wouldn’t become tired bearing her weight, so that he could pound into her over and over and over again.

It was fierce, savage, it almost hurt. Sansa’s fingers clawed at her husband’s back in a desperate search for something to hang onto. Her head tilted back and he licked his tongue along the length of her throat. “How do you like your honeymoon?” He grunted this as sweat beaded on his brow and his torso rubbed deliciously at the one, perfect pleasure center between her hips.

Sansa was gasping for air. “It’s…different. Is everything going to be like this? All secrets and -  _ohhh!_  - and lies and-  _Petyr_ -!”

“Oh no, little girl.” His fingers squeezed along her rump and Petyr took her more deeply. Sansa’s body felt like it was going to shake. “Someday, everyone is going to have to look at you and know you’re  _all_ mi-  _fuck, Sansa_.” Baelish moaned against her. “No one has that sweet little cunt you do, sweetling, do you know that? It’s perfect. Delicious and perfect…”

Before, such a thing would have horrified her, but now Sansa drank it in and asked for more. “ _Don’t stop, Petyr,_ please _don’t stop_.”

His breath was a hard gust against her shoulder and the girl grinned a little, pressing back against him as she felt him twitch and spasm within her. “You want a honeymoon, little girl? Where do you want to go? I’ll take you to the Riviera, to Fiji -  _shit_.” He rested his forehead against hers; Petyr was getting close, she could tell. “Anywhere you want to go….My wife gets anything she wants.”

That was it, that did it. Sansa thought about rose gardens and white weddings, and that here she was getting fucked on a wall by little more than a Lannister bookie with a  _brothel_ \- and that this was the far, far better option for her; that only foolish little girls chose the fairy tale, because she knew how it ended, and this was  _much_ better. Certainly more sexually satisfying. A few more desperate bucks of her hips and that promise, and Sansa was raking her nails down her husband’s back, shattering around his length. He gasped as she drew blood, shuddering and wide eyed until he hit his climax and began to crumple over her. Sansa could feel Petyr’s arms trembling as he held her, and she downright  _admired that_ he could hold her up so long before slinking them both to the bed, a dull collapse on smooth sheets.

The first thing the man did was reach for his phone and tap a few selections on the screen - a timer, Sansa realized. Parceling out how long they could rest before someone would notice their absence. The second thing he did was reach for her, drag his little wife against him while sweat cooled over his skin and his breathing steadied. Sansa thought about what it would be like when they finally revealed all this, the tabloid headlines like those Ellaria netted. “ _Fashionista Weds Middle-Aged Pimp in Hidden Ceremony?! Our secret photo spread inside_!” The notion didn’t fill her with revulsion, but rather with interest. Tyrion always said no publicity was bad publicity, after all. Petyr had the power and the capitol to get her free and on her feet, she owed him all this for that; if anyone questioned her choice  _later_ , well, they didn’t experience what she just did. The now ex-Stark smiled to herself, shockingly satisfied.

Petyr was running his fingers sleepily along the inside of her thigh where his seminal contributions were dripping from her. The man seemed quite pleased with himself. “You’re going to go back to your set after this…” His voice was a low murmur at her ear. “And all those camera men, all those gaffers, are going to look at you and imagine being with you - but do you want to know the grandest part of all?”

Sansa turned on her side so she could face her new husband, one arm pillowed beneath her head. “What is it?”

Even with eyes dulled by exhaustion and nature’s chemicals, Petyr smiled with _deep_ self-satisfaction. “They’re  _never_ going to touch you. I am the very last man who will ever get between those gorgeous legs of yours, the last one that’s going to make you come, and the last one whose name you’re ever going to scream. And what do you say to that, my sweet little Sansa?”

Sansa Baelish considered his words for a moment, rolled them over her tongue thoughtfully. “Well,” she at last replied, not sounding in the least put out. “I suppose I say that the exact same thing is true for you.” She kissed Petyr on the mouth now and let herself doze on his scarred chest. She’d earned that much, surely.


	5. Conflagration

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Challenges for this chapter were:  
> 1\. Use of the line "I didn't mean money, but okay?"  
> 2\. Tyrion and Robb meeting  
> 3\. Voyeurism

“Marriages are made on more than passion, Sansa.”

She remembered, quite distinctly, that this is what her mother told her when she returned from a movie theater one afternoon while still in middle school, proclaiming she was going to wed the latest film star. Catelyn had taken it as a teaching moment, she often did with those types of things; and Sansa was her dutiful daughter, wide-eyed and eager to be exactly like her mother when she was grown (when had that changed?).

“Marriages are based on communication, on common values: do you have the same faith, the same kinds of families, do you both want children? And above all, you have to  _trust_ your partner.”

Sansa was not that middle school girl anymore; she was a woman now, laying awake in the bed given her by the Lannisters, a thin sheet all that covered her from the night air - and she had to laugh. She curled in on herself and laughed until her sides hurt, little tiny chuckles that sounded perhaps a little mad, for her benefit alone. She had  _always_ thought her mother very wise, but tonight it seemed like she really had known nothing at all, nothing about the  _real world_  - a world populated not by good men like her father, but like the Lannisters - and like Petyr.

Petyr. Sansa rolled onto her back and held her left hand in the air, palm up, so she could examine where her ring was supposed to be. She rather missed its weight on her hand already, though she was unaccustomed to rings; it really was a beautiful piece of jewelry, she couldn’t fault Petyr’s taste. Petyr Baelish, her new husband. And what was Petyr’s faith? She had never asked him. Sansa had given up praying shortly after this nightmare began, and it wasn’t a habit she could imagine her groom practicing. Petyr disliked being on his knees generally, unless it was before her widely-spread legs, and then he was  _quite_ worshipful. She shivered with the memory. And oh, their families were  _very_ different, that much was already obvious. Children…it seemed too early to dwell on that. 

And her mother was just  _wrong_. There was nothing left to trust - in some ways, she could not even trust Robb, not with him swooping down to control her life just like Cersei and Joffrey always did. She thought she would be more upset about that, but perhaps now was not the time for it. She had her out, and it was not her big brother rescuing her this time. Sansa did not need trust, her marriage was not built on  _that:_  it was made of power and control; taking it, giving it up, and sharing it between them. She and Petyr had something far better than trust that linked them the way the marriage vows did. And better than trust, it made equals of them.

She tried to go to sleep, closing her eyes and feeling the tiredness in them, the soreness between her legs; he’d been so rough with her, rougher than he usually was - and not with the intention of causing pain, she knew, not like with Joffrey. Perhaps Petyr had lost his control in that moment? Not to worry. Sansa could hold it for him.

It made her smile. On this side of the line, she understood why starlets married on impulse, virtual strangers, the nuptials dead within a month; this whole rotten business drove them to it. The monstrous managers, the unfeeling agents, family that eroded beneath their feet with fame and fortune. Some turned to pills and some to madness, and some flung themselves desperately out into the world searching for love, if only for a minute, for an hour. Her smile deepened with the thought; really, Sansa had done far better than any of them.

So let Margaery be the star of the firm, and let her have Joffrey, and the publicized wedding with the de La Renta dress. Those were merely the flashes of the power she was after - the power Petyr would give to her, because she was his now.

And he was hers.

The girl ran her hands over herself once, thought of her husband, and was able to drift comfortably into sleep.

* * *

Tywin Lannister was dead.

A heart attack, so tragic, and he not so old, so whispered all the people at the wake, come to pay their sycophantic tributes. So very sad, what would the family do now?

Petyr had been there. Sansa had as well, but far from him; she held Myrcella’s hand while tears slipped down the girl’s cheek. Sansa and Margaery both wore black, and while Margaery’s grief was more pronounced, more on her sleeve, Sansa’s was of the reserved, quiet dignity she was most known for. She thought that this might partially be due to the fact that her mind was half-occupied; her husband was in this room, and nobody knew it. She might have smiled were Myrcella not squeezing her hand so tightly. 

Now, though, Sansa wasn’t smiling. She could see through the dining room window into the back garden, and her eyes were narrowed and lips pursed with the effort of imagining what was being said out there. Jaime and Petyr, in rapt conversation; the new Lannister patriarch looked harried, and Petyr - shorter, less physically impressive, yet infinitely calmer and more put together - was speaking to him insistently but without any sign of concern. He gesticulated frequently with his ringed fingers, and Sansa knew his wedding band would be on his right hand,  _her_ wedding band. Occasionally he raised the briefcase and Mr. Lannister would nod, looking defeated. Were they turning toward the house now? Did she dare meet her lover’s eyes, to see if he had done what he set out to do?

She didn’t have to decide, young Myrcella’s hands landed on her arm and Sansa jumped slightly. “Did I startle you, Sansa? I’m sorry.”

She smiled, covering the younger girl’s fingers with her own. “There’s no need to be sorry, Myrcella. You know I’m always hear to help you.”

Poor Myrcella, so lovely and so heartbroken. Life had, in its own ways, been no kinder to her than it had been to the Stark girl. She had been only just fourteen when her father had died; not even out of high school yet, and she lost her grandfather, the man who held this strange and squabbling family together in many ways. Joffrey paid her little attention, and while Cersei claimed devotion, it could not be said she spent much  _time_ with her child, absorbed as she was in the workings of the firm. Tommen was her only relation she had any real support from, cut off as she was from her uncles and cousin, but he was still just a boy. Sansa had been the big sister both had always longed for, and for a moment, the older girl felt a pang of guilt at what was about to happen.

But Myrcella was going to have to make her own way in the world soon enough. Sansa had certainly learned that through the school of hard knocks.

“It isn’t true, is it?”

“Is what true?”

“I heard Uncle Jaime and Littlefinger talking before they went into the yard.” Sansa wondered if her husband bristled when he heard that stupid nickname. A part of her certainly did for him. He deserved something far more elegant.

“Well, what were they saying?” As if she didn’t know, as if she hadn’t known for  _weeks_. (”As soon as the time is right, Sansa,” that’s what he told her. “I’ll buy up your contract, and then-”)

“Th-that you’ll leave! That  _can’t_ be true, can it? This is your home!”

“Oh, Myrcella!” Sansa half laughed, as if to ease the younger girl, and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, loose blonde curls covering her fingers. “I can’t exactly stay here forever!”

“I don’t see why not. It’s been fine, hasn’t it?”

Hadn’t it? Surely she wouldn’t be so stupid - so willfully ignorant - as to believe that? Or was she that blind when it was her own family committing the atrocities? Would Sansa be like that? If it were her mother and Robb abusing Myrcella, would she had convinced herself everything was fine? Maybe once. Not any longer.

Sansa smiled reassuringly at the girl, and it was a lie as surely as the words from her lips were. “Well, the contract isn’t in my control, it’s with the firm. If your family wants to sell, that’s their right.” 

“ _I’m_ a member of the family, and I say no.”

As if that would stop this. For a fraction of a moment, there was a hint of sharp bitterness to Sansa’s smile. Care for Myrcella however she might, she was prepared to scratch the girl’s eyes out if she kept her from her escape now. No, that was wrong, she shouldn’t think such things, Myrcella had done nothing - but she would suffer as surely as the rest of her family if Petyr’s plans bore their promised fruit. Should she have thought of this before now? Undoubtedly. But would it make her divert her course?

Not at all.

Sansa pulled away with a reassuring smile, smoothing back the younger girl’s golden curls. “I know what will cheer you up; a shopping trip. We can ask your Uncle Tyrion to lend us his card, he won’t mind. We can ask Margaery to come with us.” If Myrcella’s nod was punctuated with a snuffling nose, it was still agreement all the same.

* * *

“Big news coming out of the Lannister-owned Casterly Rock Ltd. this week!” The reporters were so chipper. Sansa had loved watching this program when she was younger, she supposed because she believed this kind of happiness was real. A part of it turned her stomach now. “The company has parted ways with one of their biggest models, the rising Sansa Stark. After three years managing Miss Stark, sources reveal the Lannister firm  _sold_ the remainder of her contract to a private buyer!”

“This is an unexpected move coming from the Lannisters.”

“It sure is, Becca.”

The team of talking heads, one male and one female and both impeccably dressed, bantered heedlessly about her life as Sansa watched them on the screen, the laptop balanced on her thighs as she tucked her legs up on the massive couch. The sofa was grey, its pillows threaded with silver. Most of the aesthetic of the apartment was grey or white or silver; easy, neutral colors. This place was her gift from Petyr, the loft apartment in the heart of the city - surrounded by noise and traffic, and yet so refreshingly solitary. A space all her own, he promised her, where no one would notice if he came and went, or at what hours - especially as  _he_ was her manager now. She had thought they would decorate the place together, perhaps even hoping for the illogical romance of selecting decor the way engaged couples selected china patterns. The girl had gained a lot in her hasty marriage, but there was much she had missed out on as well. 

But Petyr had refused her this, which was not something he did terribly often. “That’s your home, sweetling, not mine.” The rejection stung at first, but then there was the planning spark in his green eyes, as there always was. “You’ve never had anything all your own, have you? Your parents home, then with the Lannisters - not even a dorm room in college, hm?” Sansa had to admit she had not. “You can’t grow into a full person if you don’t give yourself a little space to do it. You truss it up however you like; there will be time to make  _our_ home soon enough.”

If the emptiness at first seemed lonely, Sansa realized it was only because she had grown too accustomed to her chains.

“Stephen, what are your thoughts on this new development?” the anchor was asking her partner, flirtatiously flipping her hair for the cameras. “Think Casterly Rock is going to suffer without Sansa’s presence on the runway?”

“I really don’t think it makes any difference!” The man’s voice was laughing, almost cutting. Sansa’s eyes narrowed in thought. “I mean, Sansa’s been on the way out for months. When was her last real presence? Was it the Vera Wang benefit show?”

“Oh my gosh, it might have been.”

“And besides, I think the Lannisters know what a good thing they have already: Margaery Tyrell is  _the_ It Girl and that’s not going to change any time soon. She is where it’s  _at_.” 

There was a cut-away to a photo of Margaery and Joffrey at some red carpet event, their styles about to be deeply analysed, when a hand snapped the laptop closed. Sansa jumped in surprise. “Petyr!”

“ _Idiots_.” He was snarling, his eyes grey and pitiless. “Stupid, brainless, driveling  _idiots_.”

The girl’s red brows furrowed. “I was watching that, you know!”

“Do they have eyes in those vacuous skulls of theirs or is it all for show? Margaery Tyrell? Better than  _you_?”

Sansa sighed, sliding the computer off her lap and stretching to a stand. Petyr’s back straightened, no longer leaning over her from the back of the sofa. “You hear this kind of stuff all the time. I had to get used to it, you know.”

“I’m not going to have it.” Petyr was holding her chin - not tightly, but firmly, just holding. “No one is going to denigrate my wife.”

Sansa’s mouth twitched in a smile. “Is it because I’m so perfect or because I’m  _your_ wife?”

Petyr was smirking at her. “Couldn’t it be both?” He pulled her closer to him then, even with the sofa separating them; his fingers held her by the back of her head, and it always made her whimper when he did that, like he could not quite get enough leverage from her, like he needed so much  _more_. Her husband swung his legs one at a time over the back of the couch, so that he sat on top of it and Sansa could be dragged that much closer to him. 

She could still hardly believed this had worked as well as it had. “We’ll go after Jaime,” he had whispered to her in the dark of his bedroom - his, and not the one he slept in beside her now. “He’s the weak link.” She remembered the way his fingers had played along her spine as he spoke, and the way she shivered, as she shivered even now in the warmth of the apartment. “He’ll want to prove what a patriarch he is, but his instincts will be to draw in, go on the defensive - jettison any extra weight. Cersei wouldn’t sell if only out of spite.”

“Tyrion might,” she whispered, running her fingers over his scar. She would kiss it, sometimes, just to listen to his breathing grow heavy. “He always said he would never make me stay like this.”

“Mm,” Petyr had sounded amused. “And I’m sure he meant it, but he’d see right through us, and he’s too clever to put the family firm at risk. I’m afraid your chivalrous little Imp is  _all_ talk.” Sansa hated it when Petyr called him that - hers, not Imp. She had never,  _ever_ wanted Tyrion, and he knew that. The smug bastard just liked to tease her. He was good at it, too. “Jaime is where the Lannisters break, mark my words.” And he had been right, as Petyr was  _always_ right.

Which, Sansa reasoned, must mean he was right about her being better than the glamorous Margaery. She kissed him a little more deeply and relished the groan that rumbled in her husband’s chest. When their lips parted, she could feel the heaviness of his breath ghosting on her lips. Sansa bit her lower lip in a way she knew he found alluring. “Are you staying tonight?” Petyr didn’t stay every night, but that he stayed at all was new and exciting. She watched him sleep once, which she knew was supposed to be romantic, but Sansa indulged simply because she had never had the opportunity before - and because it was rare to see Baelish in a state of absolute  _vulnerability_. His toothbrush in her bathroom was ten times more satisfying than any number of cocktails in his club, because that he might give to anybody. This, she knew, was just for her. His toothbrush was his weakness, if one could be so over-wrought. Naked, inside of her, Petyr still held back, was still in control, even when he seemed to be giving in to his more uncontrollable impulses.

Though maybe that wasn’t true anymore? “Yes, tonight I’m staying,” he purred to her, eyes glinting until he caught her up in another kiss - a rougher one, like the rest of him. Petyr was harder with her now that they were wed than he had been in the past. After the first few tumbles, Sansa had worried, that this would be like Joffrey, that he had waited until it was safe to show his brutality. But that was before she understood, as she always understood the man she married, somehow, she didn’t know how; that Petyr’s raw, wild abandon with her was from a desire to  _claim_ her. He had held himself just in check before, and now that she was  _his_ , he didn’t have to, and intended to impress them both with that understanding. He couldn’t simply wear his wedding band in public, kiss her hand and act like a common, everyday husband, and so instead he rutted her beneath the sheets like he would never have another opportunity to do so. Now that there was no need to hide the marks he made from the lens of a camera, he left her with bruises in the shape of fingers, rings with the impression of his teeth, circles from his sucking mouth with hungry regularity. Petyr, Sansa realized, was both making up for lost time and reveling in the fact that she was irrevocably his now. He eased up whenever she whimpered, if his attentions were ever too brutal. She felt confident once he was satisfied in this that their couplings would have more variety than just aggressiveness.

Not, however, that that was such a bad thing, Sansa considered, as he shoved the laptop over to pull her onto the sofa with him. The girl’s fingers wound through her mate’s greying hair and she hissed with pleasure when his teeth met her flesh. Petyr could mark her however he liked, it just further proved how she was the one in true control in this relationship.

* * *

It was a gorgeous restaurant, every piece of brass shining, the linens spotless. Robb didn’t know how many stars it had, but the cuisine was exquisite, and even better, the drinks were generous. Being a political intern was getting better and better every day.

It was a weeknight, and the restaurant was fairly empty this late into the evening. The young man had followed his adviser down for another meeting with the Senator, but now that they were all laughing over after-dinner drinks, business largely concluded, it seemed an appropriate time to slip away to the washroom. It was pleasantly quiet there, past the bar and away from the main dining room. Coming from such a large family, the young Stark son really ought to have been used to such noise, but he lingered in the restroom a few moments longer, indulging in the cool and quiet, taking out his phone to text his sister. “ _In town for a few. Dinner tomorrow?”_

Enough stalling, though. He slid the phone back into his pocket and exited the men’s room, striding confidently through the bar.

“Well, Mr. Stark? Enjoying your political party?”

Robb jumped slightly, searching out the source of his name; it took a moment, simply because he hadn’t been expecting someone so…short to be seated at the bar. His brows drew together. “I know you…” It was spoken in the tone of someone struggling to remember. “You’re Tyrion Lannister, aren’t you?” The dwarfish man touched his finger to his nose. “…Wait, was that a pun?”

“So many upheavals, your family and mine. A lawsuit, a death, your sister’s contract - quite a lot for one year. Sit.” He patted the empty seat to his left.

Robb hesitated. “They’re expecting me back…”

“Tell them you ran into an old friend of the family. I’ll buy you a drink.” He seemed uncertain, but at his age, it was easy to tempt the young man; Robb relented, ordering up a rum and coke. “I was sorry to hear about your father.”

Tyrion snorted into his gin and tonic. “No, you’re not. Certainly no more than I am.” Robb’s brow furrowed; he couldn’t imagine speaking about his father like that. “Now I am free of his dictatorial influence and Sansa is free of us, poor dear.”

Robb perked up slightly. “I’m sure it’s no hard feelings; but we are all excited for Sansa’s new opportunity.”

“Her new manager most of all, I’m certain.”

“Oh, do you know her? Sansa hasn’t told us very much.”

The short man sipped his cocktail. “Him.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Sansa’s new manager - it’s a man.”

“Oh…” Well, nothing wrong with  _that_. Robb conjured up images of flamboyant, middle-aged men and could picture his younger sibling quite well cared for; that was fine.

“Jaime was a fool to sell.” Tyrion was continuing on, nursing his drink in his hands. “But I  _do_ have most of the family share of brilliance. I am glad he did, though, your sister didn’t deserve us.” Robb didn’t know quite what to make of that. “Whether she will be better off out of our hands, though, remains to be seen.”

The young Stark instantly leaned forward on his bar stool, Tully eyes widening. “What do you mean?”

Lannister smirked, sadistically enjoying his sport the way a lion plays with a mouse. “I am sure, however, she’ll find the partnership a lucrative one, he  _has_ always been good at that.”

“I wasn’t talking about money, but okay? Is that meant to be some kind of hint?”

“Robb!” His adviser appeared in the bar, waving him over. “What on earth are you doing in here? We’re going.”

The young man scrambled to his feet, but could not take his eyes from his enigmatic host, drink forgotten on the bar top. “What did you mean, Mr. Lannister? Is my sister in some kind of danger?”

A sip. “She very well could be.”

“Robb!”

“Who’s Sansa’s new manager?”

Tyrion gave him an ugly, cracked smile. “Why, Petyr Baelish.”

Robb jumped when his professor brought his hand down on his shoulder to guide him out of the restaurant; his eyes were blown and movements stiff, and he almost missed the older man speaking. “-quite worried when you disappeared like that.”

The young Stark shook his head. “I’m sorry, sir, it was just - he had some information to tell me. Family business.”

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes, everything…” Robb smiled, but grimly. “Everything will be just fine. Thank you for asking.” So Jon had been right, then, this was serious - and Sansa had lied to him. His sister, lied to  _him_. Well, maybe that didn’t matter. He knew, after all, who to blame as a  _bad influence_. His phone pinged, a text alert. Robb fumbled with his pocket, at last pulling it out to read the message - from Sansa. “ _Looking forward to it!!! :) XOXO”_

* * *

God bless the twenty-four hour news cycle. It was not yet one in the afternoon and Petyr sat at the bar, watching, scotch in hand as the staff worked all around him and the television flickered. “ _Tyrion Lannister implicated in death of father_!” News pundits were going  _mad_ over video footage of the Imp being shoved into a police cruiser, wide hands cuffed together. At the bottom, a ticker was running with updates: “ _Joffrey Baratheon indicted on multiple felonies, drug charges included.”_ Thoughtful associates had forwarded him tweets from various gossip sites: “The end of the Joffaery romance?” Lord, Baelish hoped so. Just seeing that  _stupid_ couple name the media had labeled the Lannister rat and model Margaery with made him gag. “Pics of Margaery with Joff’s brother Tommen!”

Littlefinger smiled into his glass, almost sighing with satisfaction. Sansa was going to go on her knees for this, he felt quite certain. The gratitude would be  _immense_. And  _he_ had made it all possible, not any ineffectual Stark, not some blond, knightly savior - him. He grinned imagining the night ahead of him.

A noise spoiled his reverie - shouting at the side entrance, his bouncer and someone whom he did not recognize. “I  _said_ , you’re trespassing, fuckhead! I can call the police, but this gun right here is the surest way to protect myself and my employer’s property!”

“Yeah, you go right ahead, shit-for-brains.” The voice was getting closer, that of a young man. On instinct and training, the girls left the bar, only the male staff remaining, some getting into strategic, defensible positions around their boss. Petyr didn’t even blink, still evenly sipping his drink. “And I’ll add threats of violence to the list my lawyer can bring to the inquest - along with sexual assault, coercion, conspiracy to defraud-”

Mr. Baelish sighed, setting his drink to the side. “This one I have to hear. Let him come in.”

One of his men moved, there’s was an increase in commotion from down the hall, (“What are you- take your hands off of me!”) before the Mockingbird’s  _guest_ was tossed unceremoniously into the VIP lounge. 

Petyr scowled. It had to be Robb Stark, because who else would look so much like Edmure in his youth, and what other family  _irritated_ him this much? The man sighed, watching the young _whelp_ stumble in front of him, falling to his knees briefly before struggling back up. “I wonder - do sons of Ned Stark come here to  _nest_? Do I have to spray for this sort of thing?”

Robb looked at him with as much hatred as Baelish shared, easily moreso, even. “ _You_ are _fucking_ my sister.”

Petyr sighed, sipped his scotch, sucked at the ice a moment before he spoke again. “Are all your brothers as fascinated with the doings of my cock? Should I be forming a mailing list?”

The young man stared at him, mouth agape. “You don’t even have the decency to  _deny_ it?”

Baelish laughed, low in his throat. “Who on  _earth_ would deny that? Listen,  _kid_.” Robb’s blue eyes narrowed with disgust. “I get it, it’s hard seeing your sister grow up into a woman, but unless you’re going to tell me you’re a virgin - and if you are, we can fix that - it’s really no business of yours.”

“You are  _using_ Sansa.”

“Oh, often. Every night, sometimes multiple times.” Petyr smirked and sipped his drink once more. “Don’t kid yourself, boy: your baby sister is using me just as much as I am her. We like it that way. Take some friendly advice and leave it alone, hm?” That wouldn’t take, of course; Ned had never listened to his advise either.  

“You motherfucking son of a-”

One of the bodyguards moved in, twisted the Stark son’s arm so that he hissed. Petyr waved him off. “This is ludicrous, you know. She’s not a damsel in distress, don’t insult her. Surely you’re not going to tell me  _I_ know your sister better than  _you_ do.” Except he did, he knew that he did, and it made the man grin even as the boy glared viciously at him. “Why come here at all anyway? Did you think to guilt me into stopping? Pro tip: I don’t feel guilt.”

Robb pulled himself away from the bouncer’s grip, straightening his sleeves. “I came to tell you to tear up that goddamn contract of yours, because I am taking Sansa home.”

Silence descended over the bar. No one spoke. Even Robb looked uncomfortable from the sudden silence. Petyr’s eye twitched. “You are, are you?”

A moment of hesitation, and then a firm nod. “That’s right.”

“And does Sansa know that?”

“She will.”

“I see.” With a fluid motion, Mr. Baelish rose from his seat; he wasn’t as tall as Robb, and yet the temperature in the room seemed to drop with an icy current of  _fear_. “Then the only thing I have to say is, ‘No deal.’”

Robb hesitated, his red eyelashes blinking quickly. “…what?”

Petyr took a step closer, unnervingly near to the young man’s stubble-lined cheek. “I said,  _N-O_. Sansa stays. She is mine - and she wouldn’t go with you even if you asked. I don’t recommend trying to get between me and what is mine. Consider that a  _brotherly_ warning, and I’ll tell you, I don’t give those often.”

Robb’s jaw was open, his eyes tight with confusion. “Are you being serious right now?”

“Are you still planning on taking Sansa away?”

“Wild horses couldn’t stop me.”

“Hm.” Petyr smirked and stepped back, straightening his cuffs. “True, I don’t have any of those.” Robb stood taller. “But I make do.” The older man snapped his fingers.

His lackeys had Robb Stark in their hands before he could blink. “What in the-  _let go_.”

“I want him in the twin room.” Baelish didn’t even look up as his bouncers started dragging the thrashing young Stark down the hall, pulling his phone from his pocket. He hesitated a moment and then raised his head, adding, “And no permanent damage, nothing big.” He smirked. “Sansa wouldn’t like that.”

* * *

It had been a chaotic flurry of motion; Robb swung at one of his attackers and was tripped over his own feet.  _Goddamnit, son of a bitch-_  His cheek felt bruised where he’d landed on his side before he was yanked up off the floor and onto the chair. The men used leather restraints on his wrists and ankles, things that looked straight out of a fetish catalogue - and one had the temerity to stick a fucking  _ball gag_  in his mouth. Stark fought against it, and when its secure buckle made that in vain, he focused instead on hoping it was  _washed_ between its uses.

One of the bouncer’s checked the straps and whispered, “I don’t recommend closing your eyes. He’ll know, and he’ll only make you watch again.” Watch  _what_? The burly figure didn’t explain, instead leaving him alone in the room.

The twin room. What the fuck was a twin room? It wasn’t big, slightly larger than a closet, and the wall he was propped to face was dominated by a window, darkened - yet he could see through to the other side quite clearly. Shit; it was a two-way mirror, what else could it be? He could see Baelish walking in and out on the other side, phone to his ear, and there must have been a speaker box, for he could hear him as well.

“I need you to come over. Right now.” The man rested against some strange shape of furniture; those foam-and-leather wedges Robb had seen displayed for “out-of-the-box fun” at sex shops ex-girlfriends had dragged him to. What in the fuck…? “Well, it’s because I have a present for you.” There was little doubt he was speaking with Sansa; she must have said something amusing, for he chuckled low, the smile lingering on his lips as he cradled the phone against his shoulder and fussed with his cuff links. “You’ll have to come over if you want to find out…More money in the account? A tropical vacation? I’m not telling.” He laughed again, his mouth more a smirk this time. “There’s my good girl. Don’t keep me waiting, now.” And he hung up. What was the bastard playing at? Robb was clueless, and he watched with tiresome banality as the other man loosened his tie, poured wine, made the room  _ready_. Ready for what?

Ready for Sansa.

She entered from the left as Robb could see it, as lovely as ever in her dark grey dress; it emphasized her hips, showed off her milky thighs, with her long hair tumbling down her back. Petyr’s arms were open to her as soon as she entered. “What’s my present?” she asked him, smiling as if nothing was wrong, because she didn’t know,  _she didn’t know_ -! Robb began to struggle in the chair. “What is it?”

“What is it indeed?” Petyr kissed her, long, languid and slow on the mouth, his fingers playing at the small of her back and with the ends of her hair. “Is it a new dress?” His lithe fingers found her zipper and pulled  _oh so slowly_ downward. Sansa’s back was to the mirror, her skin became exposed one inch at a time. “A shopping trip?” He slid the material off her shoulders, ignored it as it pooled around her ankles. No, no, Sansa couldn’t do this, she wouldn’t-! This far away, Robb couldn’t see Baelish’s eyes flashing dark green - but Sansa could. “ _Or is it me_?”

And she kissed him back with equal hunger, Robb had to watch as her mouth opened beneath his and their tongues twined, her arms wrapping the man’s shoulders. Sick, disgusting, wrong, wrong, wrong - she continued, unabated; even when Baelish had her bra clasp off and turned her to face the mirror, his mouth at her throat as his fingers teasing the peak of one breast. To Sansa, it would be a normal pane of glass, a way to watch what was done to her - and that was not a comforting thought to her brother. Robb’s eyes closed tightly, gorge rising. This was a nightmare, he felt as though his brain itself were on fire. This wasn’t happening.

In the room beyond, though, it very much was, and Sansa moaned and sighed as her husband teased her, his fingers slipping beneath the waistband of her panties. “ _Petyr_ …”

“Yes, darling…make all the noise you like, I want to hear it all.”

Her hand reached back to snake through his hair, to drag him closer. “I want more of it, Petyr.”

“You’ll have more…” He was sliding the underwear down now, the girl shimmying obligingly out of them. “You’ll have  _everything_ , precious Sansa…” Baelish kept her there a while, one hand occupied between her legs and the other busy with her breast, his mouth all over her neck, her shoulders, her hair. Robb couldn’t stand to hear the sounds his sister made, or the way her legs spread farther and farther open to invite her lover deeper, until they began to tremble, until Sansa was weak beneath his touch. 

His plan for the wedges became clear then, pulling Sansa onto them, angled so that her head fell back towards the mirror, upside down. It made her fiery red hair spill everywhere, and she ran one had through it as if she couldn’t stand the pleasure she was being given when the man lifted the backs of her knees to balance on his shoulders. God, this was shameful, this was awful! His own  _sister_ , as unabashed as any slut, Baelish had made a  _whore_ of her, the man’s own whore. Robb wanted to vomit but he had to fight that down with deep breaths, attempts at steadying himself, since the ball gag would make that all but impossible. 

Sansa was not especially loud, and yet every cry felt deafening in her brother’s ears - and yet the worst was when the man pulled his mouth from off her trembling form, hips angled for a very clear purpose. Robb would know what was happening, the way their bodies would rub together, a tease and a promise. And stupid, foolish Sansa - how she  _begged_ for it, hands reaching to pull the man closer. How could this happen, how could she have no idea…

“ _Petyr_ …please, please, please…”

Another kiss; the girl would be able to taste her own arousal on his lips. This seemed a benefit and not a detriment to her, for she was as enthusiastic in the motion as her partner. “First, you have to tell me something, nice and loud now…”

Sansa’s hips bucked up in encouragement. A groan escaped her husband as one leg hitched up around his hip. “Anything, anything!”

A slight adjustment and the tip was at her now. “Who is your husband.”

“You are!” A sharp gasp and he was within her, and the girl was quick to move against him, whimpering her frustration at his stillness. Baelish seemed to be composing himself, head bent forward, gasping against the girl. Sansa was whining.

Petyr at last began to move, but far too slowly for the young woman’s liking. “Whose wife are you?”

“Yours, yours, harder, Petyr,  _please_.” 

Robb couldn’t believe it. It was some kind of sick joke -  _sicker_ joke, it wasn’t possible. Sansa wouldn’t marry that lunatic, a complete stranger, a monster. It was some weird game to them, that was all it could be, something even more twisted than tying him up here and leaving him to watch. But Petyr’s fingers would twine with Sansa’s, pinning her beneath him, and his mouth would lave her throat and her breasts, and no, it wasn’t any kind of game. It was too…clear in their focus on one another, in the smirking looks that  _creature_ Baelish tossed toward the mirror, knowing Robb would see them. It was a display, primeval, uncivilized, but entirely recognizable. Baelish had taken Robb’s sister and made something  _else_ of her.

If the young man was crying, at least the dark hid that.

A short time later, the bouncer was back, unclasping the ball gag from Stark’s mouth. Saliva threaded between the ball and Robb’s lips, and his jaw ached from being forced open so long. Even so, the burly stranger was rather gentle as each restraint was removed. “A note from Mr. Baelish, for you.” Robb took it; it was written on a cocktail napkin, and his eyes strained in the dark, the only light the glow of the room beyond. 

The message was a simple one in an elegant scrawl: “ _I dare you to breathe a word to her_.”

Robb crumpled the napkin between his fingers - and let it drop to the floor. The man was absolutely out of his mind. What was he going to do? On shaking legs, he stood, guided back out of the dimly lit club as preparations were made for another busy night.

But back in the other half of the twin room, Sansa was sipping chilled glasses of white wine in her husband’s arms, his hands playing with the small of her back or resting on her rump. “So…” Her voice was slightly hoarse from crying out, and the girl flicked her long, damp hair over one bare shoulder. “What’s my present?”

Petyr’s smile was very calm, very pleased as she lounged against his chest, a snort of amusement escaping him. “My, but we are greedy. Was I not enough?”

“Mm, well…” Sansa playfully traced her fingers over his scar, occasionally glancing up to watch the man’s half-lidded eyes. “It’s just, I would have gotten that anyway.”

“Oh, are we so certain?”

Sansa nodded, almost giggling as she took another drink. “Either I’d have asked when you came-” She almost said “home” and covered that near-miss up with more wine. “When you came over - or you’d have demanded it sooner or later anyway.”

Petyr was laughing quietly, and Sansa felt very calm, perhaps even happy, the sweat drying against her flushed skin. “Well…what do you want?”

“Anything?”

“Anything.”

“Mmm…” The girl tilted her head back, her hair brushing against his skin; Petyr shivered, his fingers flexing along her hips. “Diamond earrings?”

“Done.”

“A new car?”

“What color?”

“Or…” She sat forward again, running one hand through the crown of his hair. “…Are we ever going to do normal things? Sit at home, watch a movie? Act like we’re married?”

Petyr’s eyes were burning into her, and there was that all-too familiar flutter in her stomach. Most women prayed to love their husbands. Sansa prayed she did not. “Would you like that?” His voice was low, rough, the way it got when he wasn’t dazzling her with glamour. Sansa leaned closer to catch every word. “None of the grandeur of one of your magazines, just…being like that?” Would she? Sansa nodded. It was the type of thing she lost when she sold her soul to the Lannisters - the kind of thing she never knew she’d miss. Petyr smirked and his lips brushed her ear. “How’s Tuesday?”

“Oh my  _gosh_.” Sansa was a mess of giggles, her hands splayed across his chest. “Okay, okay, I want a  _real_ date night; I wanna have popcorn and everything, and I wanna watch ‘Pretty Woman.’”

“Shit.” Petyr’s head hit against the back of the foam wedge. “I should not have said ‘anything you want.’”

* * *

“Sansa.”

She turned on the bar stool, startled by the gruffness in her older brother’s voice. “Robb!” She smiled, standing to hug him, but Robb stood rigid. The girl’s eye furrowed. “What is it?”

“I tried to call you this afternoon, to confirm dinner tonight. You didn’t answer.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, I was running around  _all_ day.” His sister smiled at him, pulling him over to the waiting stool with her hand at his upper arm. “But it worked out, see?” Sansa laughed. “I didn’t think it was that complicated, Robb; you said dinner tomorrow and it’s tomorrow!” She sipped at her scotch and soda and smirked playfully. “You don’t want to turn into Mom, now, right?”

But Robb didn’t laugh. His gaze was impenetrable. Sansa’s stomach began to twist a little nervously. “What was it that kept you so busy today?”

“I have a lot of different projects with this new contract. I had a lunch date earlier.”

“With Petyr Baelish?” The curling of his lip, the absolute venom in his voice actually frightened Sansa.

“No, with Ellaria Sand…” When he turned his head, the light caught a well-spread bruise over his cheekbone and Sansa raised her fingers toward it. “Robb, what happened?”

He winced away, but only slightly. “I fell. Tell me about this new contract.”

“Oh, well, it’s a lot more flexible than the one with the Lannisters, and I can pursue school, and-”

“Who is your manager, Sansa.” She seemed startled at first, and still cold, Robb pressed the question. “Who is it?”

“No one you know.”

“Because I’ve been hearing some disturbing rumors, and-”

The girl sighed, looking away. “Not this again…”

“You said you were the expert on your own life, so I’ve come straight to the source.”

“What, exactly, am I being accused of?” She pushed her drink away in a moment of frustration. “Having a new manager? Going out to lunch?”

Robb’s head dipped forward, his eyes closed as he seemed to gather up the energy to speak. What had happened to her brother? “I know you’re with Baelish, Sansa.  _Don’t_ lie to me.” She was silent. “ _Well_?”

“What do you want me to say?” Sansa was very quiet, very calm, keeping a tight rein on the fear in her eyes; that was a skill she’d learned very well in the last few years.

Robb was glaring at her, her own big brother,  _glaring_ at  _her_. “Did you marry him?”

“That’s crazy, Robb, I don’t think you’re feeling well. We should just-”

“Yes or no, Sansa!”

The young woman pursed her lips - and picked up her drink again to sip slowly and calmly. “It wasn’t any business of yours, Robb.”

“You get  _married_ and you tell me it’s not my  _business_?”

“I was going to tell you when the time was right.”

“When would that be, Sansa? When he’s eligible for  _medicare_?”

“Shut up, Robb, just shut up!”

“Listen to me, Sansa.” Her brother’s fingers closed over hers, and Sansa nearly glowered. “I am telling you this because I am your brother and I love you: you  _can’t_ stay with this man.”

“Why not. He treats me well, he takes care of me. He’s far better than Joffrey ever was, and no one complained when we got engaged.”

“Excuse me, I did, I never liked that little blond toady.”

Sansa pulled her hand away to grab at her drink. “This isn’t really a discussion I want to have in public.”

“Listen to me, Sansa, just  _please_ listen. Think.” She raised an eyebrow, clearly ready to at least hear him out. Robb scoffed that she could be so stubborn about such a lunatic. “…Be logical. Did you even sign a pre-nup.”

She sighed. “No, it didn’t come up, we-” She stopped abruptly, eyes widening.

Robb didn’t notice and pressed on. “These are the things you have to think about, you know. Where will you live? What will you say to Mom and Dad? I know it all seems very romantic to you, but you have to be  _practical_ , Sansa.”

_A pre-nup. We didn’t sign a pre-nup_. When she got her funds away from Cersei Lannister, that would be a tidy little sum, but even banking on future earnings, Petyr was  _far_ better off than she was. She could divorce him now and take everything. And Petyr, careful, careful Petyr, surely he wouldn’t have overlooked something like that? Not the man prepared for every contingency?

She knocked her drink over.  _He loves me_.

“Jesus, Sansa!” Robb scooted back at the bar stool as a waiter hurriedly moved to mop it up. She made an absent-minded apology, but her brain was in another hemisphere.  _He loves me, he must love me, that proves it. He wouldn’t take a risk like that if it was for nothing. It’s more than screwing over the Lannisters, he loves_ me.

“I’m sorry, Robb.” She was on her feet, collecting her sweater and her purse. “I’m sorry, I have to go.”

“What?” He looked wild-eyed at her, jaw agape. “Go where?”

“I just have to be someplace right now.”

“ _Sansa_.” Her brother caught her upper arm before she could escape, and the girl turned to look at him with a furrowed brow. The Stark son’s voice was little more than a hiss. “Please. You don’t know what he is.”

“Let go, Robb.”

“He made me  _watch_ you - the two of you.”

The former Stark girl eased up slightly, taking half a step near him. “What?”

Robb looked humiliated, sick, he could not even look his sister in the face. “I was at the club this afternoon. He brought you in and I was there when he - when you were…”

There was a long silence - before Sansa leaned in and kissed her brother on the cheek. “Let me take care of this. Please.”

He looked devastated. “Don’t do this.”

But Sansa just tucked a dark red curl behind her brother’s ear; Robb was her knight, but she was no longer the princess in need of rescue. “It will be alright. I promise.” She left cash on the bar for her drink, and a generous tip to make up for the mess, and then she was gone.

* * *

The bouncer let her in the side door without a word. The working girls on the floor looked at her and then immediately through her when she was recognized. Sansa was as invisible in the busy evening crowd at the Mockingbird as she was on the street of any major metropolitan district - more so, perhaps, since Baelish’s staff would go out of their way to  _not_ see her, at least for any official record. She took up her usual seat at the bar and the bartender was there in a heartbeat, his clean rag in hand.

“Miss Sansa, good evening.” No one there called her Miss Stark anymore, and no one called her Mrs. Baelish during working hours. “I don’t believe Mr. Baelish was expecting you.”

“I have to see him right away, Marcus, it’s urgent.”

“I’m not even sure he’s in, miss. He said he was very tired.”

“Would you check for me? Please?” Sansa wouldn’t be refused anything there, but her big blue eyes didn’t hurt any. 

The bartender just nodded. “Of course. Can I get you a drink first?”

“The XO brandy, Marcus, please.” Sansa no longer mixed her good alcohol, and she equally no longer worried about running up a bar tab. She instead was keeping herself occupied with her compact mirror, nervously brushing her unruly red hair behind her ears, when the gentleman sat down next to her at the bar.

“Gentleman,” of course, was a stretch. His suit fit well, but his hair was thinning, and he grinned at Sansa with an over-wide mouth, like the wolf ready to devour Little Red Riding Hood. She ignored him at first, but then he insisted on speaking to her. “Well! You fit right in now, like a regular.”

Sansa merely glanced at him over the compact before pulling out her tube of lip glass to fix her mouth. “Excuse me?”

“Last time I saw you, you were getting your cocktail taken away by Littlefinger.”

Sansa’s eye twitched; that stupid name. “Ah, yes.” She smiled with the summation of her politeness, the scenario vaguely familiar. 

“And how was your  _date_  with him, huh? How little was his finger?” That greasy smile went ear to ear as he leaned over the bar toward her. “Bet I could do better.”

“What, and deny all the other girls waiting for you?” The man jumped at the third partner to their conversation, but Sansa’s eyes lit up;  _Petyr_! Mr. Baelish leaned forward with his customary air of the grand host, but he took the opportunity to wrap his long fingers around Sansa’s upper arm. The girl didn’t even look at the lecher beside her, face glowing instead for Petyr. “I know Cassandre in particular has been saying how much she’s  _missed_  you.” Petyr snapped his fingers, and somehow Cassandre knew to separate herself from the crowd. Sansa watched her countenance flicker with bored disappointment at the prospect in front of her, and might have pitied the woman, were she not so focused on escape from the hot and crowded lounge. Before anyone could say a word of encouragement or protest, Baelish pulled his bride from her seat at the bar. “We’ll give you two some privacy…”

It was cooler and quieter away from the busy bar, and Sansa followed behind her lover with an eager “click, clack, click” of her low heels. Petyr’s fingers loosened on her arm and she took the opportunity to slip her hand into his. This wasn’t so very different from the first time; she watched the man turn toward the direction of the office, and instead she pulled hard toward the hall of private rooms, quick to select one and shut the door behind them.

Petyr gave the place an appraising once over. “Well, I see you managed to pick the one with the mirrored ceiling this time.” Sansa had no witty retort, she did not need one, instead pressing her mouth against his. Her tongue slipped with greedy hunger between his lips and her hand held him by the side of the head to gain better leverage against him. Petyr’s eyebrows shot up at the movement, he gave a startled noise in the back of his throat, but it was hardly a protest; he certainly did not complain when his bride parted from him for air.

Sansa pressed herself close against the man, her thigh slipping between his hips to rub insistently there. “Did you make my brother watch us have sex?” She didn’t know if she pressed against him in this teasing, promising way because she thought his arousal would force him to be truthful, or because she merely liked seeing him under her power. It was, more than likely, a mix of the two, but the young woman could not have said in what proportion of each.

Petyr hissed at her movements, but his eyes shot open at the accusation. “You kiss me and then ask me a question like  _that_?”

“You make it sound illogical.”

“It’s completely illogical, it doesn’t even deserve a response.” Petyr held her firmly by the hips now, guiding her movements as he began to pant ever so slightly, pupils in his green eyes widening. “Ask yourself, Sansa, why would I do that? What purpose would it serve?”

“Why would Robb make up something like that?”

“It’s precisely the sort of thing he’d  _want_ you to believe about me, isn’t it?” Baelish’s mouth leaned forward towards hers, lips parted, and he caught her up in another savage kiss before they could continue the discussion, such as it was. “Your brothers hate me, sweetling.” He nipped at her ear and Sansa arched herself against him. “What wouldn’t they do to rescue their damsel in distress?”

“God, Petyr.” The lewd grinding was becoming desperate, and Sansa threaded her fingers through the hair at the back of his head. “ _I need you to fuck me right now_.”

She heard his belt buckle hit the floor before she’d even finished speaking. Baelish had her backed onto the couch in a heartbeat, pulling at their clothing to facilitate congress and holding the girl by the chin as he finally entered her. Sansa gave a strangled cry, but was hushed by her husband. “Look at yourself in the mirror, my sweet. I want you to look the whole time and tell me how you like it.”

Sansa’s fingers scrambled against his back, nails raking down the smooth skin - and this time, she met him thrust for thrust, a loud, almost-violent chorus of skin against skin and mouths and teeth and throats and fingers. She could look into her own blue eyes staring wildly back at her, and she knew she should feel dirty and used and ashamed, all the things bad girls were and she was not raised to be - but she didn’t. Instead, Sansa felt powerful and divine, sensual and sexual and  _incredibly_ strong. Petyr’s breath hitched at her ear and it was  _wonderful_. “No one can stop us now…” she whimpered, and she wondered if he thought she was babbling with intoxicated pleasure or if he knew how serious she was. “I won’t let anyone come between us, I swear it. We’re true partners now.”

His teeth came down on her breast before she responded, making her cry out, his hips an unforgiving pulse against her. “That’s right, my girl, that’s my girl…” He was quickly soothing the mark with his tongue, and it was just too much for the young woman.

She was screaming, she must be. “ _I love you, Petyr_!” She felt the rippling shiver run down his back beneath her fingers and it only made her want  _more_. “ _I love you - oh God, don’t stop, please don’t stop_!”

“ _Sansa_ …”

“Yes, yes, yes, harder, I’m so close…” He couldn’t tease her on the precipice, not now; she’d go mad with the need of it, tearing her eyes from the mirror just so that she could bring his face to hers, watch his eyes and his open mouth as he pushed her over the edge and tumbled right along with her. God, it was divine, it was utopia, it was what she had been  _designed_ for, to be beneath this man and take him in her body - and Petyr, oh, Petyr, he had been molded just to give her these pleasures.

Was he thinking the same thing, she wondered, as they stole breath from each other and came slowly down from that physiological high? She didn’t ask, twining her feet around his ankles and her fingers into his hair, gaze never wavering as her pule slowed. In fact, it was he who spoke first, sliding out of her with an almost pained groan, eyelids fluttering a moment. “For better or worse, was it, dear?”

Sansa continued to comb her fingers through his hair. “What?”

“The marriage vows. In sickness and in health, for richer and for poorer…If I were the monster your brothers said, would you stay with me?”

Sansa thought a moment, feeling that familiar emptiness without him inside her and with his seed dribbling between her legs.  _How soon until he’s ready again_? She nodded at him. For however unusual her union, she took her vows with all the sanctity of a Stark. How could Robb fail to appreciate that? 

Petyr grinned at her, slowly, carefully, brushing his lips against her own swollen mouth, tender in the movement. “Partners, my sweet, yes…You don’t need to worry about a thing. I have it all under control for you.”

She undulated her hips against him and the man groaned, the sound almost painful. “We’ll do everything together.”

“Oh yes, we will…”

“Good…” Sansa curled up against his chest and stroked absently at whatever parts of him her fingers could brush. “Good…”

“All mine, my girl, my little wife…” He kissed her temple and Sansa melted with happiness. They just didn’t know, Robb and Jon, they didn’t understand. How could they, not seeing what she did, when Petyr was funny and smart and gentle and handsome. But then again, they didn’t have to; he was  _her_ husband.

Sansa nuzzled under his chin and contented herself that they would learn soon enough. 


End file.
